Q: As you look again on UR’s 15-year historical past, what stands out probably the most for you?
A: For me, it’s the flexibility to look again to the start and see that the founders have been—and we nonetheless are—heading in the right direction. I at all times begin displays by speaking about our imaginative and prescient of empowering individuals. That might appear to be an odd imaginative and prescient for an organization that makes robots. But 15 years in the past, we noticed an untapped alternative to empower individuals to perform nice issues with a brand new type of automation that’s simple to make use of and collaborates with them. That imaginative and prescient hasn’t modified.
Q: How have you ever been in a position to keep that imaginative and prescient as each UR and the market have developed and clients’ expectations have modified?
A: I imagine that we now have been in a position to keep our imaginative and prescient and our focus, regardless of the speedy evolution of the collaborative robotic market over the past years. Many imagine that while you’re a disrupter and first mover that success is straightforward as you don’t have any competitors. But it’s fairly the other…. It has meant that we now have labored arduous to create a completely new market section, a brand new world distribution community, a brand new ecosystem of builders, and in the end a very new enterprise mannequin. There’s plenty of work in creating consciousness, influencing requirements, and altering buyer perceptions and expectations, which have been influenced by their expertise of conventional robots.
As new gamers enter the market, I see that as a optimistic for us. Firstly, it’s a validation that we’re heading in the right direction, and it additional helps the attention throughout the market and thereby expands our potential buyer base. Customers sometimes don’t wish to have a single-sourcing state of affairs of their provide chain and manufacturing with a view to keep away from threat. We have been constructing a completely new class, and lots of the bigger clients basically kicked the tires for a few years, validating our know-how, however hesitated to undertake our merchandise absolutely. However, as the overall market grew, our progress scaled quick as a result of clients had alternate options and it additional legitimized the know-how.
But clients’ expectations regarding high quality have additionally elevated over time, as they deploy extra superior purposes of their manufacturing processes. This is a pure maturing of the market and requires us to repeatedly finetune our know-how but in addition our enterprise mannequin as a complete. And that journey doesn’t cease, as purposes, settings and circumstances proceed to evolve. We should work nearer with our channel and ecosystem companions to get even nearer to finish customers over the subsequent years.