The use of robots in the biomedical field is expected to grow significantly, says the Japanese Yaskawa, which is investing in its newly acquired Southern African growth platform.

Yaskawa Europe COO Manfred Stern told Engineering News Online that 25 of the company’s dual-arm robots were being put to use in a laboratory to analyse blood samples 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

He was speaking at a function to mark Yaskawa Europe’s acquisition of the R130-million-a-year local business that served as its agent for nearly three decades.

Present at the function were Yaskawa Europe CEO Koichi Takamiya and Japanese Embassy Minister Ken Okaniwa.

Yaskawa Southern Africa MD Terry Rosenberg, who has overseen nearly 2 000 robotic installations in South Africa and who retains 15% of the new company, told Engineering News Online of University of Stellenbosch using one of the company’s dual-arm robots as part of a research effort into remote surgery.

“There’ll be a lot of patient-handling machinery; mobile robots for picking up patients and handling patients. We think that will become a big part of the future,” Rosenberg added.

The company is also using robots in energy-saving applications by exploiting synergies across its individual product lines.

“We can use drive technology in our robots to feed energy back into the electricity grid,” said Stern.

The use of robots in materials handing, packaging and palletising in the food and pharmaceutical sectors is also set to grow, along with the already deep and long-standing penetration of robotics into the global automotive industry.

The 98-year-old Tokyo- and London-listed Yaskawa employs 14 300 people worldwide and generates a revenue of close to R38-billion a year though four main business units – its drives and motion division; the robot division; system engineering, which has installations in the South African cement industry; and information technology. It also recently acquired VIPA of Europe, a supplier of programmable logic controllers.

Yaskawa Europe’s plan is to integrate its product offerings as a total solutions provider.

The Europe, Middle East and Africa business unit of Yaskawa has acquired the business of its South African agent as part of the establishment of an enlarged base, which will be used as a springboard into continental Africa.

“We want to support the growth of our customers in South Africa, and want our South African location to serve all African countries,” said Rosenberg, who started out at Robotic Systems South Africa almost 30 years ago.

“We have a good market share in South Africa for robotics, but I think we can, with the focus the four product-lines provide, increase our business significantly on the drives and motion side here,” said Stern, who disclosed that South Africa contributed 3% of the total turnover of Yaskawa’s Europe, Middle East and Africa business unit.