Yaskawa announced an investment of 25 million euros to expand its production capacities in Europe, with the opening of a new robot manufacturing plant and a new European robotics development centre in Slovenia, in addition to existing production facilities in Japan and China. The first Yaskawa Motoman robots from all-European production are expected to roll off the production line in 2018, and the factory should satisfy about 80% of the European demand for robots, creating two hundreds of additional jobs.
The investment was announced last 21 November during a press conference in Frankfurt (in photo, third from the right is Hiroshi Ogasawara, representative director & president Yaskawa Electric Corporation, and Manfred Stern, president & ceo Yaskawa Europe, corporate vice president Yaskawa Electric, second from right), and is aimed to offer even faster customization of robotic solutions in Europe, strengthening the cooperation with OEMs in these markets. Yaskawa already employs about 350 development and application engineers in Europe, and the strategic expansion in Europe will allow the company to react more quickly to local market needs, keeping up even more closely with European technology trends, considering Europe as a leader in many technologies.