Universal Robots Makes Strong Entry Into U.S. Market

Ed Mullen, the national sales manager with UR, has been handling the U.S. expansion, “Nobody else has a collaborative robot that’s easy to program, can be easily moved from spot to spot throughout a factory, and is relatively low in cost,” explains Mullen. “That’s why shops are literally lining up to help us sell it.”

One of those shops is Axis Inc. (Peoria, IL), which has taken these robots to several of their customers with applications that no other robotic solution can address. “There’s a dramatic difference between these systems and other competitors,” notes Gary Eliasson, the president of Axis. “This is the only collaborative robot that can work with no protection while offering so many capabilities in terms of precision handling, flexibility, and payload.”

Philip Hollingsworth, Sr., an applications engineer with Sparkem Technology, LLC (San Deigo, CA), experienced the robotic arms at the IMTS tradeshow in Chicago, “We came back from the show thinking, ‘we’ve got to get these!’ We’re always looking for solutions that will be a differentiator and give our customers an advantage.” He added that it took his team literally an hour to bolt down the robot, position it, and program it to perform ten different movements. “Most robotics solutions have a lot of setup, but this robot was incredibly easy and intuitive.”

Chuck Mulcrone, a sales manager with Applied Controls, Inc. (Malvern, PA) has already sold several of these systems. “The robots can work alongside personnel with no safety guarding. This is a huge incentive for our customers as other robotic solutions that need guarding are cost prohibitive.”

Bill Steury, the group president with Cross Company Automation Group (Greensboro, NC), also stresses the collaborative aspect of these robots. “We believe the unique value proposition of these collaborative robotic solutions will enable our customers to implement flexible automation solutions faster and more cost effectively than ever before.”

Matt Gallagher, the president of Braas Company (Eden Prairie, MN), expects the robots to be deployed in a vast range of industries spanning OEM machine builders, manufacturers of medical devices and electronics, injection molding, machining and packaging. “We provide grippers, machine vision, PLCs, conveyors and a range of other components that will interface seamlessly with the built-in logic and capabilities of these robots. UR has hit the mark with a robust product that can be programmed and implemented by users without any programming or robotics experience.”

Since Universal Robots sold its first robot in 2009, the company has seen rapid growth in more than 40 countries worldwide. Thomas Visti, the chief commercial officer with UR, anticipates this trend to continue in North America. “We’ve created an incredibly strong lineup of distributors that are all well positioned within our target markets, so we’re off to a very promising start.”

For a list of new distributors of Universal Robots in North America,  click <u>here</u>.