Labor shortage activates the robot market

From 2009 onwards, labor shortages and rising labor costs have occurred frequently, and the Chinese manufacturing industry, which focuses on labor-intensive enterprises, has entered a development bottleneck. At the same time, the emergence of labor shortage has also activated the industrial robot market in areas such as high demand for manpower and high-cost distribution and palletizing. In particular, the State Council’s “Made in China 2025” has been promulgated and implemented as a national strategy, and the robot industry has ushered in the market. Robots and other industrial robots have developed rapidly and ushered in the golden period of development.

Urgent: labor shortage and labor costs rise

As the world's most populous country, it will face long-term employment shortage? This is not alarmist. According to the latest data, the total population in China reached 1.368 billion in 2014 and continues to maintain growth. At the same time, however, the working-age population in China has been declining for three consecutive years. The phenomenon of labor shortage has spread among more and more enterprises and has become a “curse” that confuses the production and operation of enterprises.

For the Chinese manufacturing industry, which focuses on labor-intensive enterprises, especially in fields such as distribution, transfer, and stacking with high manpower demand and high labor cost, the demand for industrial robots has greatly increased, and industries such as music and gaming machines have been used. The replacement of artificial labor by robots has become a consensus among enterprises.

Some experts predict that by 2017, the use of robots in our country will reach 428,000 units, of which industrial robots such as moving and distributing pallets will become the main force in the market, and the future of music and palletizers is even more worth looking forward to.

Prof. Zheng, who has long been engaged in the research of industrial robots, believes that the high labor intensity and low technical content of transport and distribution yards have led to a large demand for labor and strong mobility of people. They are hard-hit areas for the shortage of workers and the demand for industrial robots is also strongest. Therefore, the industrial robot market, such as handling, distribution, and palletizing, will become a new growth point for industrial robots.

Competition: Music and Pawning Robots Stand Out

The introduction of palletizing robots into the market is a matter of recent years, but it is growing rapidly. At present, in the palletizing robot market, international industrial robots such as ABB Switzerland and KUKA Germany occupy a dominant share, but excessively high prices make most domestic SMEs daunting. Longchang Group was keenly aware of the vastness of the palletizing robot market. As early as in 2012, it cooperated with British LOP Automation Inc. to introduce the British LOP international advanced technology to manufacture high-tech palletizing robots with international competitiveness. Henan Leopold Industrial Automation Co., Ltd. was established.

It is commendable that Longchang Group, based on the introduction of the leading technology of LOP in the UK, has continuously upgraded its technology to suit the actual conditions in the country. Thanks to its reasonable mechanical structure, reliable processing technology, standardized assembly process and high-precision core components, the music player palletizer has been widely used in many fields such as chemical fertilizers, feeds, and food and beverages, as well as Qinhuangdao Hao and Jin Longquan beer. A number of companies have established cooperative relationships and have become leading brands in the domestic palletizing industry.

Manager Zhu of a chemical fertilizer plant in Zhengzhou City claimed that the robotic fertilizer and palletizer automatic production line they purchased was capable of delivering 1,400 bags/hour per hour, which not only replaced manual labor but also greatly increased labor productivity. In addition, the music and pawn machine has reduced the labor cost while solving the problem of enterprise labor shortage, saving the fertilizer plant an annual expenditure of up to one million yuan.

Future: Industrial robot competition favors software competition

In the survey, we also found that there are still some companies that have doubts about industrial robots and are concerned that the company does not have professional technicians for the maintenance, commissioning, and operation of industrial robots and will not be able to use it when it comes back.

According to industry sources, the shortage of professionals has become an important reason for the promotion of industrial robots. Therefore, simplifying the operating procedures of industrial robots and facilitating the operation and management of enterprises is very important for industrial robot manufacturers. The intelligent and user-friendly software solution of the music server is a good solution to this problem.

It is reported that the robotic palletizing robot adopts the world's first PAD graphic operation interface and is driven by a graphical interface. It is very convenient for debugging and use. In addition, the human-machine interface of the music and pawn machine also sends alarm information through short messages to the manager's mobile phone to enable management personnel to monitor the stacker's fortune.

The future competition of industrial robots will not only be the competition of hardware equipment, but also the competition of software technology.