1980～

1980

New Market
Development Age

Global and application challenges

- motoman inc.
- Yaskawa Electric Corporation of America (Costa Mesa, California office)
01
Accelerating Globalization: Sales, Production and Procurement

In 1967, the company founded Yaskawa America in the U.S. with the aim of expanding sales of its mainstay products such as Minertia Motors.
Beginning with that, we accelerated globalization in the 1960s by expanding our overseas sales network, establishing a global production structure based on in-demand production, and developing a global procurement network. Today, we operate out of business sites in 30 countries and 29 production sites in 13 countries.

Expansion of Overseas Sales Network

Servo motors and inverters / AC Drives were in demand in the U.S. for automobiles, pumps, and semiconductors, in South Korea for automobiles, electronics, steel, and shipbuilding, and in Asia for port cranes, heavy electric power plants, etc., in line with the industrial growth of each country. In addition, we expanded our sales network by establishing local companies to link to large orders, mainly for mainstay products.
In terms of robotics, we have established a global sales network mainly since the 1990s through M&A of local SIers in Europe and the U.S., and joint ventures with local manufacturers in China.

Establishment of Global Production Structure

In terms of global production, based on the concept of in-demand production, we have developed a production structure in areas where customer is in demand, such as in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere. We began producing inverters /AC Drives and robots in the 1990s, and servo motors / AC Amplifiers in China in the 2000s, paving a way forward to increase our market share in response to regional needs.

Development of Global Procurement Network

Global procurement began with consideration of overseas procurement in search of cost benefits from the appreciation of the Japanese YEN in the 1990s. As Japanese parts manufacturers gradually expanded into China, overseas procurement rates increased from print boards to cast and machinery parts. In the 2000s, along with the expansion of global production that we advanced, we expanded to local procurement by each base, especially in China, and global procurement and production became full-scale.

Outline of international expansion

1967

Yaskawa America founded

1980

Yaskawa Europe founded

1991

Yaskawa Singapore founded

1992

Production of inverters began in the U.S.

1993

Production of inverters began in Scotland

1994

Shanghai office opened / Yaskawa Korea founded
Yaskawa America acquires 100% subsidiary MOTOMAN Corp for sales of robots

1995

Yaskawa Singapore began an IPO (International Procurement Base) business
Beijing Office opened
Yaskawa China -Shanghai founded (Inverter production started in 1997)

1996

Yaskawa China- Motoman limited founded (Robot production started in 1997)

1999

Yaskawa Electric (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. founded

2008

Yaskawa Electric (Shenyang) Co., Ltd. founded (Servo motors and amplifiers production started in 2010).

2018

Robot production began in Slovenia
- Liquid crystal substrate transfer robot MOTOMAN-CDL3000D
- MOTOMAN-CSL2500D, the 150,000th MOTOMAN robot for transferring LCD glass substrates
- Semiconductor Wafer Handling Robot SEMISTAR-M Series
02
Advancing into LCD and Semiconductor Markets

With the spread of TVs and mobile phones, the installation of PCs in businesses, and the hit of home video gaming devices, automation and speed-up of equipment for manufacturing LCD panels have advanced. Also, with the growing need for cleanliness, high throughput and high reliability in semiconductor manufacturing, we began developing clean robots in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, we were able to supply clean robots for transporting LCD glass substrates, and robots for transporting semiconductor wafers in a vacuum environment in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Besides adding to our lineup of payload capacities, we also gradually increased the variety of shapes, and since the late 1990s, we have grown, including the installation of our own large clean rooms.
- General-purpose humanoid robot Mahoro
- Dual-armed robot for biotechnology
03
Biomedical Market Efforts with Dual Arm Robots

In the 2000s, Yaskawa expanded its range of applications with the aim of creating a new market for robots that coexist with humans in areas that are more user-friendly and closer to humans, based on the technology and know-how we have accumulated in applications such as welding, painting and transportation. In industrial applications, we commercialized a new generation industrial robot, a dual-arm robot, in 2005 in an effort to replace human work for home appliances and other assembly areas. Aiming at the biomedical market, in 2013, we launched a robotic system using a dual-arm robot for biomedical applications in order to relieve workers from the simple repetitive process and biohazard of pre-analytical processing of drugs and other chemicals performed manually. This eliminates unevenness of a series of tasks, such as dispensing, stirring, separation, and analysis, as well as individual differences or errors, making it possible to achieve reproducibility beyond humans.
- Parallel link robot MOTOMAN-MPP3
04
Market Entry into Three Products (Food, Pharma and Cosmetics)

For the food market, from the 1990s, downsized servo motors were equipped for use in food processing machines, and inverters were also sold for use in food machines as specialized functions that were water-proof and dust-proof.After the Lehman Shock in 2008, we focused on optimizing the applications and enhanced the product capabilities targeting the PPP (picking, packing and palletizing) process for the three product markets (food, pharma and cosmetics) by downsizing, improving environmental friendliness, and pursuing usability. Following a new lineup of robots for food, pharma and cosmetics in 2010, we launched a parallel link robot in 2011. This made it possible to build lines using our company robots in all PPP processes in pursuit of high-speed picking operations. We also have dedicated controllers, automatic program generation software, and production management software at the same time and improved usability and performance.
05
Efforts to Commercialize Products in the Clean Power Field

Since the 2000’s, we have expanded the business in clean power areas such as solar power generation and wind power generation by utilizing power conversion technologies.
As for solar power generation systems, the company has supplied power generation systems to local authorities as well as electric power companies, while selling industrial power conditioner (10kW and 100kW).
In the field of wind power generation, we have developed the large-scale wind power system featuring 1) high power conversion efficiency, 2) smaller converter boards, and 3) maintainability by applying our original high-voltage matrix converter technology.
High voltage drive products have made a significant contribution to energy conservation, and new applications have been developed in the automotive, marine pump systems, and food industries. We have also worked to commercialize small wind power generators and marine drive motors in response to growing market demand and environmental regulations such as the Energy Conservation Act.
- Sewage treatment plant electrical equipment construction Hondo City Water Purification Center monitoring panel
- Steel continuous casting equipment main controller CP-310 panel
06
Advances in Systems Engineering

The core concept of “Motors and their applications,” which originated in the early days of the company, became a driving and control technology that has continually evolved in the area of systems engineering in social infrastructure. Since the late 1980s, we have built integrated electrical and instrumental systems for advanced automation in steel systems for continuous casting equipment in steel plants and for feedstock yard equipment, as well as for operation and maintenance support. Based on the reputation of its application to steel equipment, the company has delivered the products to industrial systems such as papermaking equipment, film manufacturing equipment, port stevedoring equipment and newspaper rotary presses, as well as to water treatment control systems and electric power companies. Today, the system engineering business continues to be one of the Yaskawa Group’s business portfolios.
07
Tradition of the company’s motto, “Technology driven company”

The technology driven company was initially stated in 1996 by the then president (the sixth Mr. Hashimoto) as one of the company’s policies, stating that the purpose of the company’s existence is to meet customers’ needs using world-class technology. Today, it has been taken over as a company motto and has become part of the Corporate Culture (= 6 DNAs).