Collaborative robots manufacturer Universal Robots (UR) has signed four new partnerships with robotics distributors in Australia and New Zealand, bringing the total number of local partnerships to seven.

UR’s new local distributors are Foodmach, Visy Automation, Mobile Automation and Products for Industry.

UR general manager South-East Asia and Oceania, Shermine Gotfredsen, said the signings reflect rising demand among ANZ industries within manufacturing, packaging and food processing for automated solutions, in the face of increasingly competitive global markets.

“ANZ manufacturers are challenged with high local labour costs, so increasingly they are looking for innovative ways to drive efficiencies and keep expenditures down. Automating processes is now viewed as vital in order to compete on a regional and international scale,” Ms Gotfredsen said.

Foodmach’s Rym Kachouri agrees that fierce competition is driving investment in cobots: “In order to remain competitive, Australian manufacturers need to increase their investment in automation. Collaborative robots allow many repetitive factory tasks to be automated – safely and flexibly.”

Visy Automation’s Derek Ford says companies both big and small are growing increasingly interested in cobots: “As a system integrator we are seeing that both big and small business are interested in what cobots can do for them. It is also opening new opportunities where we just didn’t consider automation previously.”

Ms Gotfredsen said the adoption of automation in the ANZ market has not yet reached the scale of Asian counterparts.

“A lack of information and awareness of available automation options still provide a significant hindrance to Australian and New Zealand manufacturers achieving greater levels of innovation,” he said.