Robot Manufacturing - A Great Prospect

Ho Chi Minh City has developed a plan to manufacture robots working in some industries to meet a demand for robots, which are used to replace workers in poisonous and harmful environment. Accordingly, the city is expected to manufacture some kinds of robots in 2006.

Huge demand

According to statistics, Vietnam has now around 500 tile production lines with each having a capacity of between 20 and 30 million products per year. These production lines need equipment and machines to replace human workers to grind coal and supply coal from the top of tunnel kilns as this is a dangerous and poisonous environment. In fact, many research works at the national level have been conducted to manufacture coal grinding robots. Now, a project on the use of robots for supplying coal for steel casting kilns has been implemented. Also, robots have been used in glass production lines. In addition, the mineral casting field has a huge need of robots. In this field, the pouring of minerals, the dismounting of moulds and the painting of products are dangerous. The mineral casting industry needs multifunctional robots to replace human workers and robots to work in cleaning products before plating. The ship building industry is also in a need of robots to clean the steel surface before painting.

Beginning steps

This is the first time Ho Chi Minh City has developed a programme on manufacturing robots for various socio-economic fields. In the beginning period (from 2005), at least four kinds of robots will be manufactured to meet the demand of Ho Chi Minh City and southern provinces. However, according to experts, in the period of time, a focus should be given to reliability and stability of products. The product perfection and transfer expansion will be between 2007 and 2008. The period aims at increasing the proportion of locally-made accessories. This is a tough target but once it is achieved, it will help build up the prestige of Vietnam in robot manufacturing.

However, the success of Ho Chi Minh City programme on manufacturing industrial robots depends much on the market demand and ability of manufacturers. With their knowledge, Vietnamese engineers can deal with electric, mechanic, control and software issues for a robot. They are capable of designing multifunctional and specialised robots on the demand of manufacturers. This is an advantage to help Vietnam reduce costs as locally-made robots can be maintained, repaired and upgraded with a low cost. Their designs are suitable with local enterprises’ demand.

Associate Professor and Dr Le Hoai Quoc from the Mechanics Department of the University of Technology, under the Ho Chi Minh City National University, said that Vietnamese engineers could design and assemble robots with imported parts. However, the problem was whether Vietnam could localisation of the manufacturing of robots, Quoc stressed.

Export target

A recent survey shows that the demand for robots in automated production line is low but there is a huge need of single robots, which can work in dangerous environments for producing construction materials, mining, shipbuilding and defence industries. Therefore, Ho Chi Minh City’s programme on manufacturing robots will closely follow a target of designing and manufacturing robots which can replace human workers in various environments.

A busy market for robots ‘Made in Vietnam’ will appear in the near future. The main issue is manufacturing and localisation capability of Vietnamese manufacturers. This is the key to the success of Ho Chi Minh City’s programme. Another target is that ‘Made in Vietnam’ robots will joint the ASEAN exhibition in the 2006 – 2010 period and they will be exported.

• Hoa Binh