Hiwin and Advantech Partner to Foster Robotic Industry Cluster

Hiwin Technologies Corp. and Advantech Co., Ltd. have signed an agreement to foster the formation of Taiwan’s robot-industry cluster in order to boost international competitiveness of Taiwan’s robotic and intelligent-automation industry.

The first step of the agreement is to set up a venture specializing in robot-application system integration, to mainly target electronic-assembly, semiconductor, food & beverage, pharmaceutical, and metal-processing industries.

Initially the two parties will work on providing systems to integrate mutual products and services and cooperate in technological and service upgrade to provide solutions for intelligent automation.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the industrial-computer maker Advantech, K.C. Liu, said that the joint venture will work with upstream, midstream and downstream robot industry makers to form cluster, aiming to build robotics into Taiwan’s next core industry over the next 20 years.

Hiwin’s CEO and chairman of the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association (TAIROA), Eric Chuo, whose company is a major, global maker of ball screws and linear guideways for precision machines, said that Taiwan’s intelligent-automation industry will generate an estimated NT$1.1 trillion (US$36.6 billion) in revenue this year, up from last year’s NT$900 billion (US$30 billion), with the robotics sector alone to generate estimated revenue of NT$55 billion (US$1.8 billion) this year, up from last year’s NT$52.6 billion (US$1.7 billion).

Vice Economic Minister J.C. Shen, also at the signing ceremony, said that intelligent automation is emerging as an industrial trend worldwide, driven by America’s campaign to bring home expat industries and China’s increasing usage of robots to cope with growing labor shortage. (KL)