Germany leads in the use of industrial robots – @shutterstock | Ico Maker
+++ Robotization: How many robots are there for every 10,000 employees +++ Industry 4.0: Robots on the rise +++ 2016: International comparison of robot density +++
In international comparison, Germany is very well positioned in robotics, and with a density of 34 robots per 1000 employees, it now ranks second worldwide – behind South Korea (77) – and thus far ahead of the USA, for example, which only manages 22 robots per 1000 employees.
As a result of reshoring (as opposed to offshoring), since the nineties more and more companies have begun to withdraw production capacities from low-wage countries such as China.
The idea behind it: The higher the level of automation in companies, the lower their personnel costs and the lower the advantages of cheaply available labor in other countries.
This makes manufacturing in Germany interesting again for these companies, because in addition to the reduced personnel costs due to automation, domestic production offers many advantages, including direct contact, short distances, highly qualified personnel and the absence of language barriers, which are just a few examples.
For this reason, companies from diverse sectors such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and the consumer goods industry have once again begun to expand their capacities in Germany or even open new plants and locations. Bosch's new one-billion-euro investment in a chip factory in Dresden is just one example among many.
Robotization: How many robots are there for every 10,000 employees?
As the graphic shows, Germany ranks third among countries with the highest density of manufacturing robots worldwide. Germany is just ahead of the highly technologically advanced Japan.
there are 338 industrial robots for every 10,000 employees in the German manufacturing sector the World Robotics Report, . In absolute terms, their number in Germany increased by almost 27,000 last year (+26 percent) – a new record, according to a press release from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). The automotive industry is the most important driver of new installations. Worldwide, robot investments rose to US$16.5 billion in 2018 – also a new record. "We saw dynamic growth in 2018 with a new sales record, even though the main robot customers – the automotive and electronics industries – had a difficult year," said IFR President Junji Tsuda. While Germany is one of the top five markets for industrial robots, it still has room for growth compared to South Korea*, as the graphic shows. The most important single market, however, is China, accounting for 36 percent of total installations – equivalent to 154,000 units.
* According to the IFR report, Singapore, with 831 robots per 10,000 employees, is ahead of South Korea. However, for this graphic, we have decided to only include countries with a large land area. In the author's view, the comparison between a city-state (Singapore, industry share of GDP 25 percent) and a country with a large land area (South Korea, industry share of GDP 39 percent) is of limited significance.
Industry 4.0 (2017): Robots on the rise
The changes brought about by Industry 4.0 affect almost every sector. The technological innovations hidden behind such cumbersome and evocative buzzwords as predictive maintenance or smart manufacturing will fundamentally change the way we work, or even render human labor completely obsolete. One sector where this development began to have a noticeable impact several years ago is the manufacturing industry. Industrial robots have been used in Germany since 1970 – primarily in the automotive industry – to support or even replace human labor.
Automakers, in particular, have been relying on robotic assistants for some time now. In the private sector, however, these artificial helpers are still relatively uncommon. And where they are already in use, they are likely primarily occupied with vacuuming and lawn mowing. According to the IFR, only 3.7 million household robots and another 1.7 million entertainment and leisure robots were sold worldwide in 2015. However, experts anticipate that sales figures will explode in the coming years. They predict that consumers will purchase around 42 million robots between 2016 and 2019.
2016: International comparison of robot density
Germany is among the world leaders in the use of multifunctional robots in the industrial sector. Only Japan and Korea rely even more heavily on automation, with China being the fastest-growing robotics hub.
Automated manufacturing systems are primarily used in the automotive and mechanical engineering sectors, as well as in the production of electronic devices. The robot density in these industries could even increase further, since labor costs are relatively high in sectors where manual labor is still involved in production.
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