A dialogue with UR President Jürgen von Hollen

Q: As you look again on UR’s 15-year historical past, what stands out essentially the most for you?

A: For me, it’s the flexibility to look again to the start and see that the founders have been—and we nonetheless are—heading in the right direction. I at all times begin displays by speaking about our imaginative and prescient of empowering folks. Which will look like an odd imaginative and prescient for a corporation that makes robots. However 15 years in the past, we noticed an untapped alternative to empower folks to perform nice issues with a brand new sort of automation that’s simple to make use of and collaborates with them. That imaginative and prescient hasn’t modified.

Q: How have you ever been in a position to preserve that imaginative and prescient as each UR and the market have advanced and prospects’ expectations have modified?

A: I imagine that we’ve been in a position to preserve our imaginative and prescient and our focus, regardless of the fast evolution of the collaborative robotic market over the past years. Many imagine that if you’re a disrupter and first mover that success is simple as you don’t have any competitors. However it’s fairly the alternative…. It has meant that we’ve labored exhausting to create a wholly new market section, a brand new international distribution community, a brand new ecosystem of builders, and in the end a very new enterprise mannequin. There’s a whole lot of work in creating consciousness, influencing requirements, and altering buyer perceptions and expectations, which have been influenced by their expertise of conventional robots.

As new gamers enter the market, I see that as a optimistic for us. Firstly, it’s a validation that we’re heading in the right direction, and it additional helps the notice inside the market and thereby expands our potential buyer base. Prospects usually don’t wish to have a single-sourcing scenario of their provide chain and manufacturing to be able to keep away from threat. We have been constructing a wholly new class, and most of the bigger prospects primarily kicked the tires for a few years, validating our know-how, however hesitated to undertake our merchandise totally. Nevertheless, as the whole market grew, our development scaled quick as a result of prospects had alternate options and it additional legitimized the know-how.

However prospects’ expectations regarding high quality have additionally elevated over time, as they deploy extra superior purposes of their manufacturing processes. It is a pure maturing of the market and requires us to repeatedly finetune our know-how but in addition our enterprise mannequin as an entire. And that journey doesn’t cease, as purposes, settings and circumstances proceed to evolve. We should work nearer with our channel and ecosystem companions to get even nearer to finish customers over the following years.