UR and MiR consolidated R&D amenities and headquarters in 2024. Supply: Common Robots
Financial uncertainty has taken a toll on the robotics trade, together with main distributors. Teradyne Inc.’s robotics group laid off 10% of its world workforce this week. Teradyne owns Common Robots A/S and Cell Industrial Robots ApS, main builders of collaborative robotic arms and autonomous cell robots, respectively.
It’s unclear precisely what number of workers had been affected by the restructuring. Nonetheless, Teradyne Robotics says on its web site that it has 1,400+ workers worldwide. The ten% discount features a 6% layoff in Denmark, the place each Common Robots (UR) and Cell Industrial Robots (MiR) are headquartered.
“The robotics trade on the whole has been going by means of a tough patch,” Ujjwal Kumar, group president for Teradyne Robotics, instructed The Robotic Report.
“UR declined 3% yr over yr, and MiR grew 1% yr over yr,” he mentioned. “We outperformed the market, which had double-digit declines.”
Demand for robotics didn’t meet expectations due to the post-COVID slowdown in capital, wars affecting commerce and labor, and uncertainty amongst producers, mentioned Kumar. “I’ve been within the industrial world for greater than 25 years, and I’ve by no means seen this type of pullback in core low-mix, high-volume manufacturing,” he mentioned.
“Final yr was considered one of operations consolidation for UR and MiR, and we’ve improved the standard and price of our items and on-time supply for brand new merchandise,” Kumar added. “Our playbook is to outperform the market, pushed by improvements, channel transformations, and new verticals.”
Teradyne reviews ‘restructuring’ of gross sales, advertising and marketing, providers
In its earnings name for the fourth quarter of 2024, Teradyne acknowledged that its robotics enterprise was gradual compared with its core testing enterprise.
“The economic automation market continued to be weak in This fall,” said the North Studying, Mass.-based firm. “In 2024, we mixed UR and MiR operations right into a unified robotics operations group.”
“Now in Q1 of 2025, we’re consolidating our go-to-market capabilities on the robotics stage to allow our greatest companions to promote the complete UR and MiR product line and to serve our clients higher with a single customer-service group,” Teradyne mentioned. “This restructuring will increase our effectivity and reduces our robotics breakeven income from $440 million in 2024 to $365 million in 2025.”
The corporate mentioned that its complete robotics income was $365 million for 2024, with UR contributing $293 million and MiR $72 million.
Kumar mentioned that Teradyne is consolidating UR and MIR’s gross sales, advertising and marketing, and help groups after specializing in new merchandise previously yr.
“As much as 55% of MiR’s companions are additionally UR companions, and so is 55% of its income,” he defined. “Within the outdated construction, we had an account supervisor for each calling on the identical OEMs [manufacturers], GSIs [global systems integrators], and distributors. We had a chance to get rid of some overlap, ability up customer support, and develop regional protection.”
“Providers had an analogous overlap, with completely different product strains,” Kumar added. “By combining forces, we’ll have higher protection of each geography for tech help and restore providers beneath multiyear service contracts.”
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Common Robots strikes from new merchandise to new markets
Final yr, Teradyne mentioned it launched a report variety of new merchandise to develop its serviceable addressable market (SAM). They included the MiR1200 pallet jack with synthetic intelligence for pallet detection, cleanroom-rated robots for semiconductor manufacturing plus meals and beverage, and the MC600 cell cobot.
Common Robots additionally elevated the payload capability of its UR20 and UR30 arms by means of software program updates. It continued to roll out its PolyScope X platform and started collaborating with NVIDIA on combining AI with its cobots. In the meantime, MiR Fleet Enterprise supplied fleet administration for autonomous cell robots (AMRs).
“We would have liked a leaner industrial group to have continued concentrate on new product launches and to have higher protection with giant accounts and OEMs,” mentioned Kumar. “Key verticals for us embody logistics and warehouse, in addition to semiconductors because of issues like Teradyne’s new relationship with ADI [Analog Devices Inc.]. We’re launching a concentrate on meals and beverage and prescribed drugs.”
The MC600 is designed for dependable cell manipulation, says MiR. Supply: Cell Industrial Robots
Kumar nonetheless bullish on world development
Whereas Teradyne expects slower to flat development within the first half of 2025, Kumar was nonetheless optimistic about prospects for Common Robots and Cell Industrial Robots.
In December, Common Robots opened its first manufacturing facility in China, with new fashions for that market, the UR7e and the UR12e.
“We consider the Chinese language market is popping the nook,” famous Kumar. “We consider that section now values better-performing, high quality ecosystem-based choices, and we’re constructing on that speculation. Now we have large development plans.”
On the identical time, rising labor shortages in manufacturing, warehousing, agriculture, meals processing, and building ought to increase demand for automation in North America and Europe.
“We’re in talks with with main firms throughout the U.S.,” Kumar mentioned. “The superior robotics house — which is extra collaborative and for high- to medium-mix jobs — may also assist the place industries must redeploy individuals constantly. These are precisely the form of jobs the brand new generations of cobots and AMRs can step as much as assist.”
As commerce present season begins, Common Robots will proceed to exhibit with its UR+ ecosystem companions, as seen in its UR Collaborate occasion this week.
“We’re not pulling again on our presence at these occasions,” asserted Kumar. “Our development focus is on new product launches, and we’ll want to speak about new purposes and options with clients.”
“Cell manipulation is an incremental development driver,” he mentioned. “We launched two merchandise final yr, and we’re in all the identical human-scale purposes as humanoid robots however with extra succesful, reasonably priced cell cobots.”
“We’ll preserve bringing in additional AI-based options to develop the applying house,” Kumar mentioned. “2025 will probably be a pivotal yr for us within the superior robotics trade.”
Editor’s word: Steve Crowe contributed to this text.