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ABB announced a $150 million investment in Shanghai, China, to build an automated and flexible industrial robot factory – a cutting-edge center for industrial robot manufacturing. Located near ABB's China Industrial Robotics Park, the new Kangqiao manufacturing center will combine the company's connected digital technologies, including ABB's capability solutions, state-of-the-art collaborative industrial robotics and innovative artificial intelligence research, to create the most advanced and environmentally friendly "factory of the future." The project is expected to begin operations by the end of 2020.
ABB also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Shanghai Municipal Government to focus on supporting industrial, energy, transportation and infrastructure development in the region, as well as supporting the "Made in Shanghai" manufacturing initiative. The agreement was signed by Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong and ABB CEO Ulrich Spischov.
"China's commitment to transforming manufacturing is a beacon for the rest of the world," Spiesshofer said. Its strategic embrace of the latest artificial intelligence technologies, advanced industrial robotics, and cloud-based computing provides a playbook for every country that wants to have a globally competitive manufacturing base. Shanghai has become an important center for ABB and the world's leading advanced technology. We look forward to working with Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong, other community leaders and our customers to kickstart ABB's significant expansion in China and continue on our path to becoming China's leading industrial robot manufacturer that started in Shanghai more than 20 years ago."
The new facility in Shanghai will offer a host of machine learning, digital, and collaboration solutions, and an on-site R&D center will help accelerate AI innovation. Leveraging a new global design approach announced by ABB earlier this year, factories will be able to increase the breadth (types of industrial robots) and depth (variants of each type) of industrial robots that can be manufactured in the field, allowing for greater and faster customization to meet customer needs.
ABB will also be able to integrate this expanded portfolio of industrial robots into an almost limitless range of customized solutions. Sami Atiya, President of ABB's Industrial Robotics & Mobility Division, said: "The philosophy behind this plant is the same as the advice we give to our customers every day: invest in automation solutions that offer flexibility and flexibility to grow in whatever direction the market goes."
The Shanghai plant will be modeled as a digital twin that will provide managers, engineers, operators, and maintenance experts with intuitively customized dashboards to make the best decisions. This includes collecting and analyzing intelligence on the health and performance of ABB industrial robots in factories through the ABB Capability Connect service to ensure early detection of potential anomalies. In addition to avoiding costly downtime, ABB offers advanced digital solutions that improve performance, reliability and energy use, and provide access to the world's best platforms, such as Microsoft Azure enterprise cloud, the first international public cloud service operating in China
The new plant will have an innovative, flexible floor plan based on interconnected islands of automation rather than fixed assembly lines. ABB's logistics automation solutions will be used throughout the plant, including automated guided vehicles, which can automatically track industrial robots during production and provide them with parts from local stations. This will enable production to effectively adapt and expand changes in China's industrial robot market without increasing production capacity.
Per Vegard Nerseth, Managing Director of ABB's Industrial Robotics business, said: "We are making a significant shift from looking at plant size and CapEx investments as a way to meet future demand." The idea behind our new factory is to use every meter of production smartest and most flexibly. This is made possible by combining agile automation solutions with the capabilities of our employees.
To facilitate mass customization in the manufacturing industry and ensure the highest levels of productivity and flexibility, the new plant in Shanghai will make extensive use of ABB's SafeMove2 software, which allows people and industrial robots to work safely in close proximity. In addition, ABB's YuMi industrial robots will allow close cooperation on many of the small component assembly tasks required to manufacture ABB's industrial robots.
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