The collaborative robotics hub of MIR Robots in Barcelona has positioned itself as a reference center in the knowledge of the idiosyncrasy and versatility in the applications of autonomous and collaborative mobile robots, with a growing demand in industry, the healthcare sector, and logistics, among other sectors.
The multinational's facilities in 22@ receive more than 500 engineers each year from Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Africa areas to train in the operation of this type of robots that allow automating monotonous, repetitive, and often risky tasks performed through manual transport of equipment or material. A task easily replaceable and that gains reliability and safety if performed by a robot. In fact, industrial robotics is a key factor in the transition towards Industry 4.0 and plays a very important role for the development of society, highlights the director of MIR Robots for Southern Europe & MEA, Fernando Fandiño.
MIR Robots cooperates in the training center in the Catalan capital with the company Universal Robots, specialized in the manufacture of cobots, robotic arms created to work alongside humans in a production chain. Both companies, founded in Odense (Denmark) and belonging to the US-listed Teradyne ---provider of automated test equipment---, share the 1,500 square meter facilities on Calle Agricultura and have erected the hub as one of the key pieces of their technological advances.
"This is a high-potential market, where we see more and more companies of all types of industries interested in optimizing processes with collaborative robots to remain competitive," says Fandiño. The executive insists that the Barcelona hub "has its doors open" for all industrial fabric, but "also for the educational field, especially vocational training centers and universities, to the point that in recent months we have accelerated virtual training because we want to deepen our relationship and value contribution to the community."
Fandiño also values the impact of the center on the competitiveness of the industrial fabric of its entire area of responsibility, from southern Europe to Africa. "It was created to cover southern Europe (France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) but we have extended it to the entire Mediterranean, the Middle East, North Africa, and South Africa," he says. As a platform for industry, the hub is interesting because clients and suppliers can carry out simulations of their robotization projects to adapt the performance of automated mobile robots to their needs.
As an example, he cites the experiences of companies such as Repsol, where robots manage the distribution and custody of confidential documentation, and Danone because, in the Tres Cantos factory in Madrid, the robot works for the production lines systematically collecting product samples every half hour and transferring them to the laboratory for subsequent analysis.
Since its establishment in late 2019, the training center has not stopped growing and "has created jobs," explains the director. For this year, MIR Robots plans to increase its staff in Barcelona from 12 to 15 people. Universal Robots employs about 23 people.
Coinciding with the celebration of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), Fandiño states that the deployment of 5G "for us is not the future, it is the present." "The implementation of technology in the use of collaborative robotics will be increasingly widespread and not only in the relationship between robot and human, but also between robots," he specifies. Hence the importance of Artificial Intelligence applied to collaborative robotics, which can achieve very high productivity and efficiency, while reducing many occupational risks.