The importance of automation in manufacturing has grown more than ever. In markets like Korea, where low birthrates and rapid aging are advancing, automation technologies enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced robots will help solve structural problems such as shortages of highly skilled workers.
Poi Toong, APAC vice president at Teradyne Robotics, said at the Universal Robots 20th Anniversary Collaborate Korea 2025 event held on the 18th at GS Tower in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, Today's automation technology has emerged not only as a means to boost the productivity and efficiency of corporations, but also as a solution to overcome structural problems facing modern society.
Teradyne Robotics, headquartered in the United States, is a robot manufacturer that owns Universal Robots (UR), a Danish collaborative robot specialist corporation, and MiR, an Autonomous Driving mobile robot (AMR) corporation. It provides automation solutions to a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, logistics, electronics, and automobiles. The event was held to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its subsidiary Universal Robots. Universal Robots is the world's No. 1 corporation in collaborative robots and has sold more than 100,000 collaborative robots worldwide since its 2005 founding, with a market share approaching 30%.
Vice President Poi Toong assessed that manufacturing faces three major challenges: a shortage of highly skilled workers due to low birthrates and aging, increased expense driven by rising protectionism and high demand volatility, and a shift from small-variety, mass production—typified by conveyor-belt manufacturing—to customer-tailored, high-mix, low-volume production.
He said, In the midst of these changes, advanced robots that work hand in hand with people have become necessary to solve more complex production tasks and to further sophisticate automation technologies, adding, As corporations move away from simple processes centered on mass production and shift to high-mix, low-volume production systems, they can no longer respond to consumer demands by installing large conveyor belts in factories.
Presenting a production environment where robots, humans, and equipment coexist as a blueprint for the future of manufacturing, he predicted that mobile collaborative robots (cobots), which automatically perform logistics picking and loading tasks, will lead the advancement of automation technologies on the shop floor.
He further assessed that Physical AI (AI capable of interacting with the physical world), which supports systems in perceiving situations and solving problems on their own, has emerged as the core of future manufacturing competitiveness. He said, In a high-mix, low-volume production environment, there are many unforeseen variables and complexity increases, and how quickly you resolve this complexity using AI will directly affect production speed, lead time (the time from order to delivery), and on-time delivery rates.
There was also an outlook that Korea, where manufacturing accounts for a large share of the overall economy, will see rapid growth in demand for advanced robots. Lee Ju-yeon, head of Teradyne Robotics Korea, said, Korea is an advanced robotics nation, ranking fourth in the world in robot installations and first in robot density, but structural problems such as a shortage of highly skilled technical workers due to an aging skilled workforce and rising labor costs are driving demand for automation. According to Teradyne Robotics, Korea's annual number of robot installations is about 30,000, and robot density was found to be 1,012 units per 10,000 people.
Lee said, Korea's manufacturing sector stands at an important crossroads where it can strengthen competitiveness and secure advanced production capabilities through strategic investment in automation technologies, stressing that the country must not miss the opportunity to transition to automation. He said, Korea's strategic direction is the combination of highly skilled talent and advanced robot technologies, and through this, it can increase productivity, enhance quality and technological competitiveness, and at the same time capture both supply chain stability and job creation.
Kevin Dumas, president of MiR, an Autonomous Driving mobile robot (AMR) corporation who spoke at the event, assessed that humanoid robots are not yet ready for large-scale deployment on industrial sites. He said, Humanoid robots are attracting a lot of attention, but there are limits to deploying them at scale in industrial sites, adding, By contrast, mobile cobots can be put to immediate use in factories based on proven technologies, so they can be seen as an early stage of humanoids.
Last year, Teradyne Robotics' annual revenue was $365 million (about 534 billion won), of which Universal Robots recorded $293 million, accounting for 80% of the total. MiR's revenue was $72 million.