I have published another podcast. Two developers reflecting on Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference in terms of Gartner’s Hype Cycle–about getting enthused at the event and then reality settling in when the amount of work is realized. I reflect on the several trips I made in May and June in the same model. I’m not saying all I got was hype, but the trip from enthusiasm to realism is worth taking.
This was a strange press release that I almost just trashed. The lede, the news, was about a PR agency getting work. PR is never the news. PR executives and agents do not want to be quoted. Their job is to help people like me get to the news. They help point out new things and help us get interviews with the right people.
However, the real news concerns battery technology for electric vehicles. That news is timely and relevant. Batter technology constrains the utility of all electric vehicles from automobiles we drive to autonomous guided vehicles in warehouse and factory settings.
In brief (and in the words of the new PR agency):
First point:
NexTech Batteries, the global leader in proprietary lithium-sulfur battery technology, has selected DRIVEN360 – a world-class integrated communications and brand marketing house – as its global public relations agency of record (AOR). With deep expertise across mobility, technology and a wide range of industries, the DRIVEN360 team will oversee NexTech’s disruptive entry into multiple markets, championing the most powerful, patent-protected semi-solid-state battery technology to date. Strategic communications efforts will also spotlight the company’s goal to maximize U.S.-sourced materials.
Key points:
Lithium-sulfur called “the most powerful semi-solid-state battery with unprecedented energy density. Emphasize US-sourcing.
From its research facility in Carson City, Nevada, NexTech will focus on creating a domestic supply chain prioritizing U.S.-sourced materials, reducing the use of foreign suppliers and without the need to source unethically mined or rare materials used in current generation batteries. The company has already inked deals with North American-based lithium suppliers.
NexTech Batteries was founded in early 2016 and initially was the result of the exclusive license to the rights and patents to the lithium-sulfur battery technology developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Following the post of a personal account from Shanghai from an Interact Analysis research director, I have two market research reports from the firm. One report is global collaborative robot market; the other global manufacturing. Both are updates stemming from geopolitical events.
Interact does the best job of digging up data of any of the firms I’ve talked with. I’d recommend taking all projections with a grain of salt. As Yogi Berra (or any of a dozen other prophets) has said, “Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.”
China to buy half of the world’s collaborative robots from 2023
• Overall cobot sales hit record high in 2021 at 31,325 units
• Cobot market to exceed $2 billion by 2026
• Logistics and service industries will be the long-term market drivers
Updated cobot research from Interact Analysis shows that the market enjoyed 45% growth in 2021 as part of a post-pandemic rebound. The market for collaborative robots will continue to grow strongly out to 2026 with annual growth rates sitting at just over 20%. Logistics and service industries are likely to be the long-term growth drivers.
The Chinese market for collaborative robots continues to lead over the EMEA and Americas regions. Interact Analysis predicts that China’s market share by shipments will increase from 49.1% in 2021 to a staggering 54.4% in 2026 (at which point annual unit ship ments will exceed 50,000). The research shows that China’s 2022-2026 cobot CAGRwill be 29% – the highest of all the global regions. The Americas – where uptake of cobots particularly in manufacturing is much more cautious – are likely to retain the smallest market share overall with a still impressive 5-year CAGR of 19.4%.
By 2026 the collaborative robot market will be three times the size it was in 2021, exceeding $2bn that year and with shipment rates hitting the roof at 100,000 units. The outlook is positive for the long-term, with the research showing that growth rates of 20% will be maintained right out to 2030.
A key focus for cobot companies right now is on making their products suitable for new application scenarios. Currently, we are seeing a strong uptake in collaborative robot usage within the medical, education, logistics and catering fields. Moving forward, it is likely that we will see greater uptake within the industrial manufacturing industry where cobots are helping to plug the gaps caused by ongoing labor shortages.
Maya Xiao, Senior Analyst at Interact Analysis comments, “As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of labor shortages is seemingly never ending. This is leading many to invest in collaborative robots. Our research shows that once one competitor invests in collaborative robots, and it is seen to work, there is a ripple effect. In 2021, global cobot shipments achieved a phenomenal year-on-year increase of 44.6%. Collaborative robots are being used as a form of ‘future-proofing’ because the pandemic creates so much uncertainty that companies don’t know what to expect next. Annually, we predict a 20-30% growth rate for the market, right out to 2026.”
Global manufacturing production value to hit $44.5 trillion in 2022
New research from Interact Analysis projects that total manufacturing industry output will grow by 4% in 2022, then decline by $0.2 trillion in 2023, before rising again in 2024 and 2025.
The new research profiles Russia and Ukraine to ascertain stress points for MIO regions. Despite a GDP of over $1.7 trillion, Russia is considered an ‘emerging economy’ due to its small manufacturing base. However, since the largest companies in Russia are energy suppliers, the country is considered an ‘energy superpower’. Escalating fuel prices, which will impact Europe far more severely than the USA, are an obvious fallout from the conflict. Ukraine on the other hand had a GDP of just over $155 billion in 2020 according to the IMF, of which just over 30% was industrial production. Ukraine produces 70% of the world’s Neon – a key input in semiconductor production – and half of Ukrainian Neon is from Odessa and Mariupol. Since both these cities are key Russian targets, we expect one fallout of the conflict to be severe increases in the price of Neon. This will be a further big problem for the already beleaguered chip industry, which will turn to cheaper suppliers in China for relief.
The Shanghai lockdowns have also had an undoubtable impact on the manufacturing industry, particularly because the city hosts a port that handles over 25% of all Chinese freight traffic. Shanghai is primarily a finance center, however if the Chinese government were to implement similar measures in one of their major manufacturing hubs, it could spell disaster for the global economy, since China accounts for 44.4% of total global production output.
Adrian Lloyd, CEO at Interact Analysis says, “Automotive is particularly worthy of comment at the moment. The sector was already facing severe pressures following the pandemic, and the Ukraine conflict has made matters far worse for the industry. One of these problems is the new pressures on semiconductors, which already hit the automotive sector hard. Another is that Russia provides the majority of the world’s palladium which is used to produce catalytic converters and is now inaccessible. And yet another problem is that Ukraine is a key manufacturer of components for Western Europe’s automotive industry, particularly wire harnesses, supplies of which are now intermittent. As a result of all this, we predict minimal growth for automotive of 2.8% in 2022.
I report regularly on the market research done by Interact Analysis. The CEO provided a thorough background about methodology and analysis convincing me their reports have better data science behind them than what you might get elsewhere.
This report is unique. It’s not a market study. Rather, Jan Zhang, senior research director, lives in Shanghai. She provides an interesting local look at the consequences of the severe lockdown Chinese authorities are using to combat the spread of Covid. I do not envy policy makers who must balance reducing deaths and hospitalizations on once side and living and commerce on the other.
You can read the entire blog post here.
Many in the West will know that there have been some very harsh lockdowns in parts of China, particularly Shanghai where I live. Though restrictions have recently, and extremely suddenly, eased, we are on standby for them to be re-imposed just as suddenly again. I wrote this insight both to talk about my personal experience of these new lockdowns, and to discuss some business and manufacturing impacts that I see.
The impact of lockdown on a personal level
We were locked in our flats since the beginning of April, though after the 3rd week we were allowed to walk around our locality if infections had gone down to zero in the area. But all shops and restaurants were closed. Where support for people was concerned, things were rather disorganized, particularly at first.
People who were not allowed to work were basically living off savings. There are some policies in place, such as lowering mortgage payments, and our company has been granted free rent for six months, but so far unified central government schemes to support people in need are limited.
Shanghai: Goods piling up at the port are clogging national and global supply chains
Shanghai has strong, high value, automotive and semiconductor industries. The city is also an important logistics hub, with very large port facilities which are a global gateway for goods coming into China,as well as being a domestic logistics center for the Yangtze Delta area. The port has not been completely shut down during the lockdown, with workers being allowed to continue working, and it is also highly automated, but there has been a shortage of truck drivers to get goods in and out, so there’s a serious logjam of goods which has sent shockwaves through supply chains across the country and indeed across the globe.
Government assistance for businesses has been hit and miss There are policies coming from central government, but it’s a long chain of command filtering down through the provinces and local industries, and it takes time. When we heard about the lockdown at the end of March, we thought it would be for 1-2 weeks. But it’s been very strict, more so than in Wuhan in 2020, even though the virus is much weaker.
On a personal or business level we weren’t prepared for what was coming. In April and May, companies had to apply for permission to continue functioning and not many were granted permission – about 600 made it on to the whitelist as the first batch of enterprises, to resume work and production, which is a drop in the ocean in a city like Shanghai with a population of over 26 million. And when companies did get permission to resume working, their activities were restricted.
More companies are beginning to start up again now, but the economic impact has been severe. Shanghai has lost over 60% of GDP during the lockdown, putting a serious dent in the government’s 5.5% GDP growth plan. We are expecting more government support, but it’s all a bit uncertain what shape it will take. Here at Interact we have been fine as we can work from home, but manufacturing has been hit really hard.
Lockdown: Bad for business; bad for people.
Few positives come out of this for business, beyond making business leaders think carefully about how to maintain productionduring future global shocks. On a personal level, it has affected some people quite badly, with talk of loneliness, frustration and even PTSD. Old people who don’t understand how to use the internet have perhaps been hit the hardest.
For me, I’m just glad it mostly seems to be ending and I’m praying we don’t return to it!
I’m digging out from under the avalanche of news picked up during my travels. Plus, I spent several hours today traveling to the Apple Store to visit a genius. My MacBook Air would not power up. That symptom was one of four that popped up on Apple support. Obviously not an unknown problem. So now I’m digging through Dropbox for iPad which only partially synced with Scrivener to write these posts. I hope they don’t have to replace the logic board and destroy all my data! I have played with using my iPad Pro as a primary computing device, so at least it’s set up. Just not as productive as the MacBook.
I’m digging out from under the avalanche of news picked up during my travels. Plus, I spent several hours today traveling to the Apple Store to visit a genius. My MacBook Air would not power up. That symptom was one of four that popped up on Apple support. Obviously not an unknown problem. So now I’m digging through Dropbox for iPad which only partially synced with Scrivener to write these posts. I hope they don’t have to replace the logic board and destroy all my data! I have played with using my iPad Pro as a primary computing device, so at least it’s set up. Just not as productive as the MacBook.
Back to Rockwell Automation. It is a company with many partnerships. This one intersects with my latest interest in all things biology. (And I’ll include the company’s latest tag line.)
Rockwell Automation, the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, announced the grand opening of the Rockwell Experience Center at the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) in Manchester, N.H. The center recognizes Rockwell’s long-term investment in ARMI, a member-based, nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance the bioeconomy of the United States.
The Rockwell Experience Center will help teach ARMI’s members, including physicians and researchers, how to leverage smart manufacturing to scale regenerative medicine products so they can be delivered to more people faster.
The center includes equipment from Rockwell, Air Science, Cytiva, Festo and HID Global. The focal point of the center is a fully automated Cytiva equipment process train integrated with various Rockwell technologies. These include a distributed control system, a manufacturing execution system, and a digital twin.
“The Rockwell Experience Center demonstrates Rockwell’s longstanding support of ARMI and the role smart manufacturing technologies can play to bring regenerative medicine to scale,” said Blake Moret, ARMI board member and chairman and CEO of Rockwell Automation. “ARMI’s work training workers to compete and win in this fast-moving industry is an exciting model for manufacturing and for American competitiveness.”
ARMI is led by inventor Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST Robotics and inventor of the Segway human transporter, the first automatic, wearable insulin pump, portable dialysis machines, a water purifier, an all-terrain electric wheelchair and the DEKA-Luke prosthetic arm. Kamen has said he engaged Moret in ARMI’s earliest days, seeing the potential role automation could play bridging the gap between laboratory science and a commercially viable product.
