Robotization in Japanese manufacturing industries

Robotization in Japanese manufacturing industries has grown rapidly and steadily in the last ten years supported by labor shortage pressure, adaptation of process lines for robotization, and improvement of reliability and cost performance of cheaper and simpler robots available for automation of simple process lines. At the same time, robotization has been a significant factor in the increases in productivity and has been of particular benefit to the electric and automobile industries in the international market place. Taking account of these situations, Japan is a good place to study the socioeconomic implications of robotization, and a project was commenced within the Japan Institute of Policy Science with this purpose in mind, aiming at a quantitative analysis of robotization as an economic process and its economic impact. This paper presents an overview of the present status of robotization and examines possibilities for future development, focusing mainly on the above two industries which have so far been the main robot users. And the ways that robots have been used, incentives for robotization and the accompanying problems will be described in chronological order up to the present. The major data base of this paper is results of a survey by the Japanese Industrial Robot Association based on a wide ranging questionnaires sent to both robot users and producers, and results of interviews with engineers mostly from within the electrical and automobile industries.