Fanuc Robot History

Since its incep­tion in 1956, Fanuc (Fuji Auto­mat­ic Numer­i­cal Control) robot­ics has con­tin­ued to meet glob­al demands and inno­vate their tech­nolo­gies time and time again. They have suc­cess­ful­ly grown into one of the largest mak­ers of indus­tri­al robots in the world.

1956 — The first NC in the Japan­ese pri­vate sec­tor was devel­oped successfully.

1958 — The first com­mer­cial Fanuc NC was shipped to Maki­no Milling Machine Co., Ltd.

1959 — The first con­tin­u­ous path NC in Japan was devel­oped. The first elec­tro-hydraulic pulse motor was devel­oped. It was the most impor­tant com­po­nent for Fanuc’s open loop sys­tems, form­ing the basis for Fanuc’s progress and leap, as the Japan­ese NC machine tool indus­try made a rapid growth.

1960 - The first open loop NC, Fanuc 220 was devel­oped. The NC devel­op­ment in Japan focused first on the ​“Con­tour­ing Con­trol” rather than ​“Posi­tion­ing Con­trol”. This was because of cheap labor costs at that time in Japan, which made it more sen­si­ble to auto­mate com­plex shape machin­ing by milling machines, rather than to auto­mate machin­ing by drilling machines.

1972 - FUJIT­SU Fanuc LTD was found­ed and became inde­pen­dent from FUJIT­SU LIM­IT­ED. CNC was intro­duced. NC drill was developed.

1974 - Indus­tri­al robots were devel­oped and installed in our fac­to­ry. Dr. Ina­ba, Pres­i­dent of Fanuc was reward­ed with ​“the 6^th Annu­al Memo­r­i­al Award of Joseph Marie Jacquard” by the Amer­i­can NC Soci­ety. The pro­duc­tion and sale of DC ser­vo motors were start­ed under GET­TYS MAN­U­FAC­TUR­ING CO., INC license.

1976 - GEN­ER­AL NUMER­IC COR­PO­RA­TION was joint­ly estab­lished in the U.S.A. by Fanuc and Siemens A.G.

1979 - Fanuc SYS­TEM 6 was the first CNC in the world that fea­tured a large capac­i­ty Bub­ble Mem­o­ry and mul­ti­ple num­ber of cus­tom LSIs, thus sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing the num­ber of its parts, enhanc­ing its con­trol capa­bil­i­ties as well as real­iz­ing out­stand­ing reli­a­bil­i­ty and cost per­for­mance. The advent of Intel’s micro­proces­sor enabled Fanuc SYS­TEM 6 Series to use it to per­form inter­po­la­tion and trans­fer tool-posi­tion-infor­ma­tion, the data of the inter­po­la­tion, into ser­vo-error-reg­is­ter every 8ms in real time.

1982 - Fanuc MECHA­TRON­ICS S.A. was estab­lished in the Grand Duchy of Lux­em­bourg. The Tech­ni­cal Train­ing Cen­ter was opened. GM Fanuc Robot­ics Cor­po­ra­tion was joint­ly estab­lished in the U.S.A. by Fanuc and Gen­er­al Motors. On July 1, the cor­po­rate name was changed from FUJIT­SU Fanuc LTD to Fanuc LTD. Fanuc AC ser­vo motor was devel­oped. The Motor Fac­to­ry was completed.

1983 - 600 Fanuc ROBOT­ICS LIM­IT­ED was joint­ly estab­lished in the U.K. by Fanuc and The 600GROUP PLC.

1984 - Upon com­ple­tion of the new Head Office, the CNC Fac­to­ry, the Injec­tion Mold­ing Machine Fac­to­ry and the Basic Research Lab­o­ra­to­ry at the foot of Mt. Fuji, the Head­quar­ters was transf­fered from Hino City, Tokyo. The ful­ly elec­tric plas­tic injec­tion mold­ing machine, Fanuc AUTOSHOT, was developed.

1985 — With an increase in NC equipped machine tools, the demand for low cost CNCs expand­ed. In 1985, Fanuc devel­oped a low cost CNC, Fanuc Series 0 for a large-vol­ume low-end machine tool mar­ket. The Fanuc Series 0 was based on the tech­nolo­gies used in the Fanuc Series 6, espe­cial­ly its estab­lished and reli­able soft­ware assets. The C mod­el in the Series 0 fea­tured high-speed com­pu­ta­tion and func­tion­al enhance­ments with its upgrad­ed 32-bit microprocessors.

1986 — The Cen­tral Tech­ni­cal Cen­ter, the Robot Assem­bly Fac­to­ry and the Pro­duc­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry were con­struct­ed in the Head­quar­ters area. GE Fanuc Automa­tion Cor­po­ra­tion was joint­ly estabished in the U.S.A. by Fanuc and Gen­er­al Elec­tric. Under the new JV com­pa­ny, three oper­at­ing com­pa­nies, i.e., GE Fanuc Automa­tion North Amer­i­ca, Inc. in the U.S.A., GE Fanuc Automa­tion Europe S.A. in Lux­em­bourg and Fanuc GE Automa­tion Asia Ltd. in Japan were estab­lished. The Asian com­pa­ny was estab­lished in 1987.

1992 — Fanuc Robot School was estab­lished. GM Fanuc Robot­ics Cor­po­ra­tion was restruc­tured to Fanuc’s whol­ly owned share hold­ing com­pa­ny, Fanuc Robot­ics Cor­po­ra­tion, togeth­er with its sub­sidiaries, Fanuc Robot­ics North Amer­i­ca, Inc. and Fanuc Robot­ics Europe GmbH. A Pro­to­type of the intel­li­gent robot was built.

1995 — An intel­li­gent mini-robot assem­bly was auto­mat­ed by a pro­duc­tion prototype.

1997 — The new Ser­vo Motor Fac­to­ry was con­struct­ed. The fac­to­ry fea­tures ​“robo­t­i­za­tion” which max­i­mizes its over­all oper­a­tion hours to include night time and hol­i­days, in addi­tion to nor­mal work­ing hours. The longer oper­a­tion hours result in low­er unit costs, enabling us to pro­duce high­ly com­pet­i­tive ser­vo and spin­dle motors. Work process is ​“robo­t­ized” when­ev­er and wher­ev­er pos­si­ble, to con­stant­ly pro­duce high qual­i­ty motors and reduce lead time.

1999 — An intel­li­gent robot was pro­duc­tized after the improvement.

2000 - The Sheet Met­al Fac­to­ry was com­plet­ed. Fanuc India Lim­it­ed was restruc­tured to Fanuc’s ful­ly owned com­pa­ny. Fanuc now holds 90% of the shares of Fanuc INDIA and GE Fanuc Automa­tion NA the remain­ing 10%. Being the major­i­ty share­hold­er, Fanuc has assumed full respon­si­bil­i­ty for the man­age­ment of Fanuc INDIA.

2001 — The new Injec­tion Mold­ing Machine Fac­to­ry was com­plet­ed. Fanuc LASER SER­VICE LTD was established.

2003 - Fanuc’s Intel­li­gent Robot was inte­grat­ed into the 3^rd gen­er­a­tion unmanned machin­ing system.

2009 - Pro­duc­tion of Genkot­su Robots, which are par­al­lel linked, started.

2012 - Sub­sidiaries in Europe were reor­ga­nized into Fanuc Europe Corporation.

2013 - Sub­sidiaries in Amer­i­ca were reor­ga­nized into Fanuc Amer­i­ca Corporation.

2015- The com­pa­ny was proud this year as they reached a robot vol­ume of 400,000 units. Addi­tion­al­ly, the high­ly advanced Col­lab­o­ra­tive Robot, CR-35iA, was devel­oped, with a high pay­load and soft cov­er to avoid pinch points. Final­ly, more to cel­e­brate, FIBER LASER was devel­oped and ROBO­DRILL vol­ume reached 200,000 units.

2016- ROBOSHOT vol­ume reached 50,000 units, CNC vol­ume reached 3,600,000 units, and the Mibu Fac­to­ry was constructed. 

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