NAA Event Review: Networking meeting at Kawasaki Robotics, also with presentations from Servispart Consulting and Autodesk
The NAA offers members exclusive opportunities to visit companies involved in the automotive industry, with the most recent event allowing attendees to ‘meet the robots’ at Kawasaki in Warrington…
NAA members recently had the opportunity to ‘meet the robots’ at Kawasaki in Warrington.
Before seeing the robots in action in the factory, a presentation enlightened the audience about elements of Kawasaki that many might not have been aware of.
Many people are likely to associate Kawasaki with motorbikes, but this sector represents just 22% of the business, and the company works in many other industries. Having started 137 years ago with a shipyard, the company has diversified and today works in areas including shipbuilding, aerospace, rockets, rail, power generation, construction machinery, industrial equipment, ATVs and jet skis. Globally the company has 35,000 staff and sales of £8bn.
Kawasaki Robotics is a world leader in the development, manufacture and supply of industrial robots, with 130,000 robots in action worldwide, and in the UK automotive industry, there are 600 Kawasaki robots in use on the production lines at Toyota and 400 at Jaguar Land Rover.
Kawasaki Robotics can provide a robot for most handling or assembly requirements, with payload capacities extending from 2Kg, for the ultra-high speed Y-Series Delta Arm, to the heavyweight 700Kg payload M-Series.
Kawasaki Robotics (UK) Ltd is the UK robotics division of Kawasaki Heavy Industries Japan. Based in Warrington, Kawasaki Robotics (UK) Ltd occupies a 10,000 sq. ft. building. The facility centralises all the sales and customer support operations, with areas for customer demonstrations, training, robot test and integration and a large area for stock machines.
Over 2,300 machines are now operating in a wide range of industries and applications throughout the UK.
As well as the presentation from Kawasaki, there were also two other presentations at this NAA event.
Autodesk
Oli Adams introduced Autodesk, a US company that develops design software for the automotive industry. Autodesk has worked with NAA member BAC, using software to optimise the aerodynamic design of the vehicle. Oli talked about how the BAC Mono reflects where the industry is going, in terms of personalisation of the design of vehicles, an area in which Autodesk can help.
For more information contact Oli Adams at Autodesk, oli.adams@autodesk.com, or visit www.autodesk.com
Should you sell more services in addition to your products?
Adrian Botham from NAA member company Servispart Consulting asked delegates at the event if they had ever wondered whether their business was more or less servitised than their peers and competitors in their industry? In other words, should they offer and sell more services in addition to their products?
For any business wanting answers to these questions, Servispart Consulting has a way of helping get them for very little effort.
Servispart Consulting is conducting research to better understand the extent of servitisation within and across a number of engineering product sectors.
The research is designed to help understand:
- The extent to which manufacturers of different sizes and in different product sectors are oriented towards services
- The extent to which greater service capability is a predictor of faster growth and stronger margins
- How manufacturers see the opportunities, benefits and barriers of greater servitisation.
Companies are invited to complete a survey – by doing so, they will be eligible to receive a free copy of their findings as soon as they are published.
Companies will also receive an opportunity to benchmark their manufacturing services situation against peers in their industry and adjacent sectors (on a general basis as data on specific companies must remain confidential).
To take part in the survey, click here:
