{"id":3031,"date":"2026-01-20T17:47:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/wptest\/2026\/01\/20\/robotic-automation-pivotal-to-powering-malaysias-small-medium-manufacturing-industries-during-an-economic-downturn\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T17:47:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:47:25","slug":"robotic-automation-pivotal-to-powering-malaysias-small-medium-manufacturing-industries-during-an-economic-downturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/2026\/01\/20\/robotic-automation-pivotal-to-powering-malaysias-small-medium-manufacturing-industries-during-an-economic-downturn\/","title":{"rendered":"Robotic Automation Pivotal to Powering Malaysia\u2019s Small & Medium Manufacturing Industries During an Economic Downturn"},"content":{"rendered":"

MALAYSIA, 14 May 2020<\/strong>:\u00a0Universal Robots<\/a>, Denmark-based collaborative robots (cobots) technology market leader, today urged Malaysia\u2019s SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to accelerate the adoption of robotic automation in order to remain competitive and efficient ahead of tough economic times.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

With volatile market conditions and constant disruption, leveraging automation to optimise production is a constant challenge. A new class of robots, dubbed \u201ccollaborative robots\u201d aims to bridge the gap between fully-manual assembly and fully-automated manufacturing lines. Universal Robots highlights that cobots could potentially improve productivity for Malaysian SMEs in the manufacturing sector by up to 30 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cMalaysia is an important growth market for Universal Robots. As companies face rising costs for raw materials and a weak currency, investing in innovative automation technology is necessary to remain competitive,\u201d said Darrell Adams, Universal Robots\u2019 Head of Southeast Asia & Oceania. \u201cCollaborative robots will play a major role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. With the assistance of cobots, local manufacturers can achieve higher levels of efficiency and rapid productivity gains.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that\u00a0cobots can easily be reprogrammed to solve new tasks to meet the short-run production challenge faced by companies and thereafter, adjusted to ever more advanced processing in smaller batch sizes. The adoption of cobots can help expand the manufacturing sector\u2019s contribution to the economy and boost innovation and capacity for SMEs.<\/p>\n

Malaysia\u2019s manufacturing sector, comprising 98.5 percent of SMEs, serves as a major contributor to the country\u2019s economy. However, the average automation levels among local manufacturing firms are still low. About 80 per cent of companies are automating less than 50 per cent of their processes.<\/p>\n

According to Universal Robots, firms that have gone the automation route have increased production by as much as 300 per cent; while reducing defects by 90 per cent and lifting profits by 20 per cent. Universal Robots is targeting key industries such as electronics, automotive, semiconductor, furniture and consumer products.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow\u2019s workplace will be run by highly-skilled workers assisted by intelligent devices. Cobots help automate and streamline repetitive and potentially unsafe processes thus, ensuring safe work environment while increasing productivity and efficiency,\u201d said Adams.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cobots Take on New Roles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Universal Robots offers 7 models of simple, flexible and affordable collaborative robot arms-\u00a0UR3<\/a>,\u00a0UR5<\/a>,\u00a0UR10<\/a>\u00a0from the CB3 series and UR3e, UR5e, UR10e and\u00a0UR16e<\/a>\u00a0 from the e-Series, each named after their payloads in kilos. Flexible \u00b1360 degree rotation of all joints allows usage in confined spaces. These cobots can be floor, ceiling, and wall mounted as required. Instead of requiring skilled programmers, cobots come with a tablet sized touch screen user interface, where the user guides the robot arm by indicating movements on the screen<\/p>\n

Universal Robots customers typically see ROI within the first year.\u00a0This is the case at\u00a0Benchmark Electronics<\/a>,\u00a0a US-based global engineering, manufacturing and integrated technology solutions provider for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), where the company has successfully deployed six Universal Robots’ industrial cobots in their assembly and testing processes in its Korat, Thailand operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Benchmark Thailand needed a robotics platform that was easy to understand, learn, and deploy. Unlike some platforms, the Universal Robots cobots use a simple touch-screen teach pendant on free drive mode that operators can learn quickly and create programs, and tweak fine adjustments easily.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough Universal Robots\u2019 cobots, we see greater consistency in our production output and minimal human error. We have improved operational efficiency by 25 percent and saved manufacturing space by 10 percent. This will be good for new business opportunities. We expect to achieve ROI within 18 months,\u201d said Boonlert Aukkarapichata, Director of Operations at Benchmark Thailand.<\/p>\n

We evaluated many robots and cobots from different vendors, and we found Universal Robots’ (UR) cobots to be the best cobots brand to serve our current and future needs. They are incredibly easy to program and made light work for our operators to learn quickly, and are safe to work alongside with,” said Aukkarapichata.<\/p>\n

He added that operators have been transferred to higher-skilled jobs, involving complex assembly processes, following the integration of cobots in the production process.<\/p>\n

Cobots are now the fastest-growing segment of industrial automation, with the yearly annual revenue for cobot arms expected to reach USD11.8 billion by 2030, up from USD1.9 billion in 2018, according to ABI Research.<\/p>\n

Universal Robots is represented by distribution partners in Malaysia and more information can be found at\u00a0https:\/\/www.universal-robots.com\/distributors\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MALAYSIA, 14 May 2020:\u00a0Universal Robots, Denmark-based collaborative robots (cobots) technology market leader, today urged Malaysia\u2019s SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to accelerate the adoption of robotic automation in order to remain competitive and efficient ahead of tough economic times.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3644,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031\/revisions\/3644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}