Fanuc America Celebrates 35 Years of Manufacturing Paint Robots

Thir­ty-five years ago, Fanuc Amer­i­ca pro­duced its very first NC Painter, a hydraulic paint robot, using key com­po­nents from the par­ent com­pa­ny, Fanuc COR­PO­RA­TION in Japan. As a sub­sidiary of Fanuc COR­PO­RA­TION in Japan, Fanuc Amer­i­ca is proud to extend the pro­vi­sions for indus­try-lead­ing robot­ics, CNC sys­tems, and fac­to­ry automa­tion to the Americas. 

Dur­ing the past 35 years, Fanuc Amer­i­ca remains glob­al­ly respon­si­ble for all paint robots and door open­ers of the Fanuc robot line­up. These robots have been suc­cess­ful­ly sold to hap­py cus­tomers in a wide range of indus­tries such as agri­cul­tur­al, auto­mo­tive, aero­space, recre­ation­al vehi­cles and boats, fur­ni­ture, appli­ance, and med­ical devices. 

This is a major mile­stone in the Unit­ed State’s robot­ics indus­try so it goes with­out say­ing, a cel­e­bra­tion is in order! Fanuc robot­ics is proud to cel­e­brate the 35^th anniver­sary for con­tin­u­ing to suc­cess­ful­ly man­u­fac­ture their line of paint­ing robots at their head­quar­ters in Rochester Hills, Michi­gan. Fur­ther­more, Fanuc Amer­i­ca is the proud sup­pli­er of its U.S.-made paint robots to all of the top 15 glob­al automak­ers ranked by the Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion of Motor Vehi­cle Man­u­fac­tur­ers (OICA).

Mike Cic­co, the com­pa­ny Pres­i­dent stat­ed, ​“We have ded­i­cat­ed our­selves to 35 years of prod­uct inno­va­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing effi­cien­cies to pro­vide our cus­tomers with the high­est qual­i­ty paint robots that we design, assem­ble, and inte­grate here in the U.S. and export to cus­tomers around the world. Through­out 2017, we will be tak­ing a look at where we start­ed, what we have achieved, and what our plans are for the future.”

They couldn’t have had the suc­cess with­out the Unit­ed States based prod­uct devel­op­ment team. The Vice Pres­i­dent of Paint Shop Automa­tion for Fanuc Amer­i­ca, Jon Karr, says, ​“Hav­ing an exten­sive group of local experts to pro­vide soft­ware, prod­uct design, assem­bly, and inte­gra­tion of our paint robots allows us to react quick­ly to cus­tomer needs.”

As one of the industry’s largest teams, with hun­dreds of years of accu­mu­lat­ed engi­neer­ing expe­ri­ence, this team has worked hard to design and imple­ment a wide range of mechan­i­cal, elec­tri­cal, process, and soft­ware prod­ucts. Zero Down Time (ZDT) is a great exam­ple. ZDT is a cloud-based appli­ca­tion that ana­lyzes data and then alerts cus­tomers of poten­tial issues that need to be addressed before unex­pect­ed down­time occurs. There are cur­rent­ly over 800 paint robots using ZDT analytics.

Fanuc America’s new paint robots are all ZDT-ready. This appli­ca­tion helps them mon­i­tor a wide range of func­tions includ­ing dri­ve health, paint process reg­u­la­tors, paint can­is­ters, and spray appli­ca­tors. ZDT also serves as a main­te­nance reminder for customer’s and informs them when they need to inspect and/​or replace items that are worn out.

Fanuc America’s paint robots have answered the call for the robot that can tack­le an ergonom­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing, haz­ardous, and labor inten­sive job. Con­se­quent­ly, Karr states that ​“We’re see­ing a sig­nif­i­cant increase in paint robot sales to non-auto­mo­tive cus­tomers both domes­ti­cal­ly and abroad.”

The lat­est paint robot by Fanuc Amer­i­ca, the P‑350iA/​45, offers six axes and is Class 1, Divi­sion 1 approved for oper­a­tion in haz­ardous envi­ron­ments. This robot was designed for a vari­ety of appli­ca­tions includ­ing paint­ing, coat­ing, sand­ing, and wash­ing and all of these attrib­ut­es were debuted by the P‑350iA/​45 at the 2017 Auto­mate Show in Chicago. 

Fanuc has always impressed with their inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies and proven exper­tise to help man­u­fac­tur­ers in the Amer­i­c­as real­ly increase effi­cien­cy, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and prof­itabil­i­ty. Fur­ther­more, Fanuc lives in a cul­ture of ​“Ser­vice First” which reflects their belief in putting cus­tomer ser­vice among their high­est pri­or­i­ty. Our rep­re­sen­ta­tives are here to answer any ques­tions you may have about Fanuc prod­ucts. Con­tact our experts today online or at 877−762−6881.