Yaskawa opens new production facility in Slovenia

The company says that it already started European production of its Motoman robots at the end of 2018. The investment volume is about EUR 25 million. The new plant – which was officially inaugurated on April 8 – adds to the existing production facilities in Japan and China and will satisfy about 80% of the European demand for Motoman robots. With the new production facility for Motoman industrial robots Yaskawa is reacting to the sharp rise in demand in Europe and the EMEA region. “Our goal is to shorten supply chains and delivery times, to enable us to react faster to regional market requirements and our customers’ wishes – not only with the new plant, but also with a major European robotics development centre,” Masahiro Ogawa, Executive Officer of Yaskawa Electric Corp. and General Manager Robotics Division, explains in a press release. Bruno Schnekenburger, CEO & President of Yaskawa Europe, adds: “With this investment we want to further strengthen direct contacts to customers in Europe and work even more closely on the path to Industrie 4.0, not least through first-class customer service.” The robots to be manufactured in Kočevje will for the main part be the current Motoman GP series with a payload of 7 to 225 kg. The new facility offers Yaskawa of over 12,000 square metre – out of which 10,000 square metre are for production – and provides the company with a capacity to manufacture up to 10’000 Motoman robots per year. Furthermore, up to 150 new jobs are to be created step-by-step, about 10% thereof in the development department.