Chicago, Nov. 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The report "Robot End Effector Market by Type (Electric Grippers, Vacuum Cups, Tool Changers), Robot Type, Application (Handling, Assembly, Processing), Industry (Food & Beverage, E-Commerce), and Region (2021-2026)", Steady deployment of robots in manufacturing industries is facilitating the growth of robot end effector market. Growing demand for collaborative robots across healthcare and other industry segments, especially non-heavy industries such as food & beverage and pharmaceutical and cosmetics are expected to promote new opportunities in the robot end effectors market and hype the sales as well. Meanwhile, recent research & developments in dexterous robotic hands are also expected to drive the market.
Major vendors in the robot end effector market Zimmer Group (Germany), Schunk (Germany), Schmalz (Germany), Destaco (US), and Festo (Germany), Piab AB (Sweden) Tünkers (Germany), Robotiq (Canada), FIPA (Germany), Wiess Robotics (Germany), ATI (US), Bastian Solutions (US), IPR (Germany), ABB (Switzerland), KUKA (Germany), SMC (Japan), Applied Robotics (Denmark), IAI (Japan), JH Robotics (US), EMI (US), Millibar Robotics (US), RAD (US), Soft Robotics (US), OnRobot (Denmark), and Wyzo (Switzerland). Apart from these, Seed Robotics (Portugal), Reliabotics (Canada), SAKE Robotics (US), and Innovent Technologies (US) are among a few emerging companies in the robot end effector market.
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[332 Pages Report] According to MarketsandMarkets, the robot end effector market is projected to grow from USD 1.9 billion in 2021 to USD 4.4 billion by 2026; it is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.8% from 2021 to 2026.”
Zimmer is a global player at the end of arm tooling (EOAT) technology with decades of experience serving the automotive, electronics, consumer goods, tooling machinery, foundry, and plastic industries. Its operations are organized through five business divisions— automation and handling technology, clamping and braking elements, industrial shock absorbers, dampers for the furniture industry, and machine tooling. The EAOT devices are termed “handling technology’ with an extensive variety of more than 3,000 products under the portfolio. Zimmer Group is one of the first manufacturers in the world to introduce HRC-capable grippers to the market and now has the largest portfolio of HRC grippers worldwide.
A collaborative robot of Rethink Robotics (Germany) equipped with an HRC gripper of the Zimmer Group is designed to assist hospital staff in adjusting the oxygen level for a COVID-19 patient. In 2021, Zimmer Group collaborated with Schmalz (Germany) and introduced a multifunctional end-of-arm platform named MATCH that is compatible with every common lightweight robot and conventional robot on the market due to its extensive function portfolio and universal communication interfaces. Zimmer Group is a technological leader and a single-source manufacturer of hardware and software solutions for robots and a capable partner in research & development. Zimmer Group’s R&D specialists are developing customized gripper fingers for their client, Decathlon (Albania), for manufacturing cycling shorts, where there is a requirement of two separate systems working together since the padding must be placed individually (on a curved negative form) and held in position during sewing.
Browse in-depth TOC on "Robot End Effector Industry"
191 – Tables
86 – Figures
332 – Pages
Schunk (Germany) is expanding its business by adopting inorganics strategies. For instance, in April 2021, Schunk announced a partnership with 3M (US) to fulfill the growing demand for automation in grinding, polishing, and brushing processed by businesses. Schunk invests further research & development work in its highly anticipated end effector unit AOV for this partnership, where 3M looks for the best abrasives and process parameters for the application of the unit. Schunk constantly exchanges technical and scientific knowledge, as well as many years of practical expert knowledge, by collaborating with universities on a variety of projects; collaboration with Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) for a project on safe use and application potentials of HRC. The company’s R&D specialists apply their expertise to incorporate technical solutions into innovative products. Schunk’s machining tools are specifically designed for automated applications, ensuring perfectly finished surfaces at all times. For grinding and polishing workpiece surfaces, the AOV random orbit sander is the specialist with a vane motor with a maximum speed of 10,000 rpm drives the pneumatic unit. Schunk operates in more than 50 countries with 34 directly-owned subsidiaries and distribution partners on sight. Schunk has operations across five regions: Europe, the Americas, South Africa, Australia, and Asia. Some of its major subsidiaries are Schunk Intec Pty Ltd (Australia), Schunk Intec GmbH (Austria), Schunk Intec-BR (Brazil), Schunk Intec Corp. (Canada), Schunk Intec Machinery Trading (China), Schunk Intec OOO (Russia), Schunk Intec Limited (UK), Schunk Intec India Private Ltd. (India), Schunk Intec K.K. (Japan), and Schunk Intec Inc. (US).
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Robot end effector Market Dynamics
Driver: Increasing adoption of collaborative robots (cobots) owing to their benefits and features
Due to the fast-changing nature of industries, the demand for collaborative end effectors is increasing. This scenario is observed in the consumer goods industry, specifically packaging, where the shape, size, surface, or weight of the packaging is constantly changing. A collaborative robot or a cobot is a system that is designed to work alongside humans in a shared workspace in contrast to typical industrial robots operating autonomously. It is a relatively new concept that was first drafted and initiated in 1994 and has been pioneered for actual use only in the last decade. The collaborative robot market is expected to witness a high CAGR of 42.8% between 2021 and 2026, with the presence across every major industry from automotive and electrical & electronics industries to pharmaceutical & cosmetics and food & beverage industries. There are about 42 companies developing and marketing this technology in some form or another.
Europe is estimated to the majority of the market share for these robots mainly due to strong government support promoting industry automation principles such as Industry 4.0. Industrial tasks that can be performed include, but are not limited to, pick and place, bin picking, assembly, polishing, deburring, machine tending, gluing, dispensing, and packaging. New demands in manufacturing and material handling to assist floor workers across all industries drive the need for the development and deployment of collaborative robots. Developed by Piab (Sweden), a piCOBOT is a certified powerful vacuum gripper that supports plug-and-play with seamless integration with Universal Robot’s (Denmark) robot arms and is safe to be used alongside humans; Zimmer Group (Germany) and Schmalz (Germany) introduced a modular system called MATCH to meet the various applications of industrial robots such as production and assembly. Human-robot collaboration (HRC) grippers were designed by the Zimmer Group (Germany) to work with industrial robot arms such as Yaskawa’s (Japan) Motoman Robot and Universal Robots’ (Denmark) startZ HRC grippers for robots. A Rethink Robotics (Germany) collaborative robot with a Zimmer Group (Germany) HRC gripper was designed to assist hospital personnel in monitoring and controlling the oxygen level for a COVID-19 patient. Similarly, Schmalz (Germany) introduced a modular system called MATCH in collaboration with Zimmer Group (Germany) to meet the diverse applications of industrial robots such as manufacturing and assembly, warehouse logistics, shipping, and laboratory automation.
Assuming each collaborative robot requires end effectors, the narrative has been supported in the figure below that how an increase in the patents of collaborative robots over time supports their increasing adoption and thereby are considered a driver for the robot end effector market.
Restraint: High cost of deployment of industrial robots for SMEs
Unlike large-scale industries such as automotive or electronics manufacturing, most SMEs have a low threshold for capital expenditure. They also have a low-risk appetite and have limited time before they start generating returns on their investment. The applications are very specific and are on a case-by-case basis. A glass manufacturing company, Saint-Gobain (France), needed to automate a glass polishing process that was done by hand. Robotiq programmed its torque sensor that mimicked the hand movements and pressure applied by an actual person and successfully automated the process. Many SMEs have not built their infrastructure around deploying robots and, in many cases, have to implement robots later on within the existing floor space. A German audio company, Beyerdynamic (Germany), for example, had to automate its product assembly process in the existing working space. In companies where automation is being implemented for the first time, employees may not have the technical know-how to operate, maintain, or troubleshoot these robots. Zimmer Group (Germany) is also working on a pneumatic gripper with integrated (electrically controlled) valves for Juema (Spain); Juema is a company that has been producing high-quality dolls for more than 30 years.
Opportunity: Growing demand for electric grippers
Pneumatic grippers, which are the most common type of grippers, provide less flexibility and control over grip forces. In the electrical & electronics and pharmaceutical & cosmetics industries, where robots are installed in cleanrooms or any other location with controlled atmospheric conditions, pneumatic systems are avoided due to the risk of air contamination. On the other hand, hydraulic grippers are not used in the food & beverage and pharmaceutical & cosmetics industries due to the risk of oil spillage in case the hydraulic lines break. Electric grippers address many of the shortcomings presented by other grippers. Initial iterations of electric grippers were slow and inefficient and could not match the gripping forces compared to others. Current-generation electric grippers, however, have the speed and strength to match their pneumatic counterparts with additional benefits. They are fully programmable, giving users finer control over speed and gripping force.
Challenge: Interoperability issues and difficulty in integration of different robotic framework with existing facilities
Interoperability is a very important function in any factory or manufacturing unit. There must exist a 3Dlar framework for both hardware and software to connect and coordinate various end effector systems. The focus is not only on the software side, which is used for programming, diagnosing, and monitoring but also the interchangeability of hardware between the end effector and robot arm. There have been cases in the industry where a client has bought a robot arm and an end effector separately that were not fully compatible with each other, and the setup was a huge challenge from the onset. It is currently common in the industry to switch end effector mid-cycle to accommodate different parts such as vision systems or replacement of the end effector, owing to better performance-cost ratio. It is the role of the integrator, rather than the manufacturer or end user, to decide on the implementation and set up of the end effector
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