Wen 丨 Liao Yingyi
Edited by Jiang Qianjun Liu Xiaotong
Before 2018, China's robot industry experienced its first growth boom: AI entered people's field of vision, robot parks were built everywhere, and robot companies were supported... This year, there was a second wave of boom - the robot industry once again attracted large factories and capital to enter. Logistics companies such as SF and JD.com, car companies, mobile phone companies, and Internet manufacturers such as Tencent, Meituan, and ByteDance have all entered the game.
Compared with the past, the current growth boom is taking place in the post-epidemic era and the accelerating pace of aging society. Problems such as untouched contact and an aging population have made manufacturers aware of the importance of automation solutions. Secondly, the current manufacturing industry chain is more complete, the technical level of related fields in the upstream, middle and lower reaches are progressing, and robots are the key elements of the development of manufacturing to flexibility, automation and intelligence.
From the perspective of segmentation, industrial robots are still the hottest track. According to the "China Robot Industry Development Report (2021)", it is estimated that in 2021, the scale of China's robot market will reach 83.9 billion yuan. Among them, industrial robots are 44.57 billion yuan, service robots are 30.26 billion yuan, and special robots are 9.07 billion yuan.
The key to the intelligent development of manufacturing industry enables the rapid development of autonomous mobile robots
At present, the application of industrial robot technology is beyond doubt, among which the autonomous mobile robot (AMR) market that empowers manufacturing enterprises to produce processes, warehousing and logistics and other important links has entered an explosive period. In the first three quarters of this year, there were 30 financing incidents in the mobile robot industry, most of which exceeded 100 million yuan. After several years of hard work, the start-ups at the beginning have gradually grown into the head of the industry with the trend of latecomers, and have grown strongly under the favor of capital.
Zhang Chaohui, founder of "Youai Zhihe", said that the company has deeply cultivated the two major fields of "industrial logistics" and "inspection operation and maintenance". In terms of market share, "Youai Zhihe" is deeply rooted in the field of industrial logistics, focusing on the segmentation scenarios of the semiconductor industry, accumulating a lot of industry experience, and obtaining obvious market advantages. In addition, in the field of inspection and operation and maintenance, focusing on power plants in the energy industry and grasping the market first, it also occupies a leading position in the market.
"Youai Zhihe" product matrix
Compared with the past polishing technology, deep ploughing scenes, and upgrading products, "Youai Zhihe" has gradually made efforts on the client and begun to implement "double-line parallelism": "industry line" mainly focuses on the head customers of the semiconductor and energy industries, and the "regional line" layouts the three major plates of South China, East China and West and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the two lines are parallel and accurately match the latest needs of customers in different regions for automation transformation. In addition, the company has set up a professional strategic department in terms of human resources to take the initiative to empower "China's intelligent manufacturing".
Polishing technology, deep ploughing subdivision scenes specializing in the track to gain a firm foothold
Mobile robot market is developing rapidly, can be applied to the scene needs of the industry present different characteristics, has been applied to the industry scene in different enterprises under the production requirements of different needs, on the whole, mobile robots for the industry to bring efficiency improvement, but also means that the future of the specific subdividable areas of many, market competition intensified.
At present, with the growth boom of the robot industry, robot companies are also experiencing a new round of reshuffle. Thinking about how to consolidate the advantages of the track and hold the main share of the market tightly in our hands also needs to focus on the new situation.
Zhang Chaohui combined the company's development experience and interpretation of the current situation to summarize three keys: specialized scenarios, soft and hard combinations and technical barriers.
The first is to make the scene deeper and deeper. Do a good job in the industry with its own advantages, continuously accumulate industry cognition, and achieve "the enterprise that understands robots best in the industry scene", and also to be "the enterprise that understands the industry best on the robot supply side". Facing the semiconductor field, Youai Zhihe introduced a team of senior experts from the industry to sink to the customer site, listen to customer demands, continuously polish products, and create a logistics automation solution for the whole industry chain from wafer manufacturing, chip packaging and testing to packaging; In the field of power plants, the intelligent inspection solution of Youai Zhihe covers all-scenario applications such as coal transmission corridors, plant inspections, substations and smart warehouses, and is the mobile robot manufacturer with the most comprehensive scenarios.
The second is to do a good job of hardware while making supporting software that meets the needs of the industry. Taking industrial logistics as an example, the logistics control system of Youai Zhihe TMS can be linked with the equipment and processes required in the customer scenario, open up the entire material flow and data flow, and form a complete closed loop of materials from "raw material warehouse - line edge warehouse - production line - finished product warehouse", so as to achieve stable, continuous and efficient production of the factory.
The third is to improve the accuracy and stability of the algorithm. Robot technology is the foundation of the industry, in the technical research enterprises should sink down to continue research and development, high-quality and efficient delivery of each project. Relying on the profound scientific research background of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Youai Zhihe has strong technical advantages in the positioning and navigation algorithm of mobile robots, and is one of the few manufacturers in the industry that will achieve a positioning accuracy of ±2mm, and has extremely high stability.
Take root in the industry with lean management and pull through the industrial chain with standardized products
The competitive barriers of robot enterprises can no longer rely solely on key technologies, and also need to be re-established along the product matrix, application scenarios and industrial chain ecology.
Based on advanced technology, creating high-quality products, taking root in each subdivision of production scenarios, forming the ability to land on a large scale in continuous applications, and reducing costs and improving efficiency to feed back technological progress product iterations are the long-term development ideas of "Youai Zhihe".
Image source: Youai Zhihe
In terms of robot application landing, the first step is to deepen industry awareness and meet the pain point needs of customers. In the early stage of development, "Youai Zhihe" selected the semiconductor and energy industries with the highest application barriers, and the requirements of these industries have greatly improved the company's ability to develop products and planning solutions, laying a solid foundation for the current market development speed and large-scale standardization development.
The improvement of product standardization and large-scale landing ability is the only way for the development and growth of robot enterprises, mainly including "standardized delivery" and "standardized implementation" two major means.
"Youai Zhihe" is dismantled from the upper layers of the process. First of all, the internal management unifies the process automation and standardization requirements for sales, supply and implementation; secondly, in terms of customer service, set up "nearby services" to follow up the entire process of services, build a new "engineering service department" to ensure after-sales, and create a closed loop of standardized services; finally, in the implementation stage, according to the summary of the landing project, empower the creation of standardized products.
This year, the fluctuations of upstream components in the robot industry have had a direct impact on robot companies, and improving the ability to control the supply chain and product quality control is an inevitable problem for enterprises to expand.
"Youai Zhihe" breaks the logic of robot companies using machines alone to replace people in the past, and is committed to integrating robot products into the overall production system of customers.
In terms of product quality, a quality team has been specially set up to control from the production of incoming materials to the overall finished product, to amplify the industry's first-mover advantage in supply chain control, empower the downstream, and at the same time set up an emergency team to strategically coordinate and manage the upstream of the supply chain.
With the wave of industrial upgrading, the robot industry ushered in new opportunities for rapid development. There is still a long way to go before robot technology is deeply applied to various industrial scenarios. The market prospect is broad, and each subdivision scene or track has also become a must for robot companies to occupy market share.
In the future, "Youai Zhihe" will focus on its own advantages, deepen the scene, playing style, algorithm and scale, make the fine manufacturing scene that is rising and developing more professionally, and continuously push this set of logic and model to new scenes.