Spoiler alert: It’s a subset of robots. We’ll get to that in a moment. Meanwhile, some recent market research helps us put some context around the excitement of integrating robots into our manufacturing companies.
Market research firm Beroe, Inc. (Raleigh, NC) predicts that the robotics market will grow from $43 billion in 2018 to almost $71 billion in 2023—a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5 percent. If you launched a product today that was guaranteed 10.5 percent per year, you would take the deal (unless inflation got out of hand) because Year 1 would be a value of 100, let’s say, and Year 5 would be 165.
What will generate the demand driving that kind of growth? According to Beroe, 41 percent of that demand is driven by the automotive sector. Electrical and electronics generates 20 percent, and the metal industry (our home) generates 13 percent.
The growth is coming from China, aided in large part by China’s automobile industry—Beroe gives no number that signifies China’s participation in the overall growth in the article (but certainly they do in the study). It is certainly a high minority figure. Europe generates about 25 percent of the demand, and The Americas limps in at last place, generating 24 percent.
Subsegment explodes
And now the spoiler: cobots are growing at a rate much faster than robots (which includes cobots). Some interesting tidbits from Interact Analysis (Raunds, England):
- For cobots, CAGRs will be around 20%. These rates should hold through 2030. This is big. Comparing to the scenario above, if Year 1 is 100, then Year 5 is 207. You can plainly see how much faster growth is expected in the cobot world vs. the more general robot world.
- This study provides more evidence that China is poised to lead this trend, and predicts China’s share of the market for shipments (i.e. making them, not buying them) will increase from last year’s 49.1 percent to 54.4% in 2026.
- Further, China’s CAGR for cobots is expected to be 29%. (Year 1 is 100, Year 5 is 277.)
- This study agrees that The Americas will lag, with a CAGR of 19.4% (but let’s not feel too bad, it’s still a great number, and is much higher than the “corrected” cryptocurrency CAGR of about 12 percent, to choose an industry).
Cambridge, England-based IDTechEx did a study that covered the next two decades for cobots. Considering that often my wife and I are still texting at noon about the possibilities of that evening’s supper menu, this is a daunting task but they have taken it on.
Their numbers stand in good agreement with other studies. They predict, overall, a cobot CAGR of 27.2%. The reason for the optimism is based on what really makes a cobot a cobot—its flexibility (as opposed to speed or reliability, which attributes it has also).
Short term, the highest growth is seen in the 2024-2025 period, a definite predicted spike that triples the market compared to 2021. In fact, 2025 may be a candidate for the Year of the Robot. (In fabricating it might come sooner given the amount of people we need and can’t get.)
Longer term, the study predicts that the high CAGRs are in fact sustainable through 2043. I don’t doubt it. The other interesting things we’ll cover in a future And Another Thing are the adjunct markets like machine vision and software, coupled with emerging technologies like sensors and end-effectors.
As far as growth markets, cobot manufacturers expect to be ensconced in places that are untapped today, such as health (think of the DaVinci surgical robot and a bunch of less intelligent but highly useful relatives) and hospitality (including assisted living—it’s very difficult for workers to, for example, help people shower or move from one place to another).
If you own or manage a fabrication shop, or a machine shop, or even a steel distributor with value added services, it’s time—right this minute—to begin investigating how to integrate cobots into your workplace. The initial investments are pretty low. Like watches to cars to Broadway tickets, you can spend whatever you want, but a good, flexible, medium market cobot will set you back between $20,000 and $35,000. Cobot suppliers, meanwhile, are making it very simple to put these cobots into action, and increasing applications and capacities.
The beautiful thing is this: you can make that initial investment, and you can change your cobots’ mission six months down the road when you have different manufacturing to do. You’re buying speed and accuracy and most of all, flexibility.