Kawasaki Heavy scraps plans for industrial robot plant

Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., the world’s fifth-largest manufacturer of articulated industrial robots, will abandon its plan to build an industrial robot plant because of weak demand from its main customers, automakers and chipmakers, according to reports. The firm had planned to spend about ¥10 billion (US$95.6 million) to build the factory at its production facility in Hyogo Prefecture by the end of 2008, its first new industrial robot plant in about 40 years. This would have boosted its production capacity by 50% to an annual 16,000 units. Kawasaki Heavy nixed the plant construction plans in part because chipmakers are also reducing capital investment, with the exception of such firms as South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Should demand increase later, it intends to expand production lines at an existing domestic plant. (July 5, 2008)