The first American-made IRB 2600 from ABB is painted with special commemorative red, white and blue paint and was manufactured at ABB's Auburn Hills, MI, facility.
The IRB 2600 robot is the first to be produced at the ABB Auburn Hills, Mich. facility and was sold by CIM Systems, Inc. to Hitachi Powdered Metals USA.
Painted a commemorative red, white and blue, the robot will be used for material handling of in-process engine component parts at the Hitachi Greensburg, Ind., facility. It is the 180th ABB robot to be installed at the Hitachi plant, but the first one made in America.
"Hitachi is honored to receive the US-manufactured ABB robot,” said James Adams, chief engineer of robots and automation at Hitachi. “It will be prominently positioned on our plant floor to showcase the essential role ABB robots have in our operation and our passion to keep production in the US.”
“For a company of our size the volume of robots we have is unprecedented,” Adams continued. “I truly believe that if we didn't have robots in our facility we wouldn't be in business today."
For CIM Systems, an ABB Value Provider, the sale of the first American-made ABB robot is just as impactful.
"We are proud to be involved in the placement of the first ABB robot manufactured in the United States,” said Dave Fox, president of CIM Systems Inc. “We have already seen a reduction in lead times since the Auburn Hills plant opened and it has helped us get some business that was directly related to improved delivery turnaround."
ABB announced that it would begin producing robots at its Auburn Hills facility in May 2015. In addition to the IRB 2600, the company will begin manufacturing other popular robot models in Auburn Hills this year.
ABB robots sold in the Americas have historically been made in Sweden and China. The company now expects that 75 percent of all models delivered to North American end-users will be manufactured in the US by 2018.
"The sale of ABB's first robot produced in the US to Hitachi is a tremendous milestone in the development of our manufacturing presence in the Americas," said Sami Atiya, president of ABB's robotics and motion division. "It is a major step towards our goal of providing local customers with delivery schedules and technical support that are far superior to other robot manufacturers."
ABB also recently opened a new packaging application center in Bloomfield, Conn. and an assembly and test application center in San Jose, Cali. The company also opened a handling and machining application center in Houston, Tex. several years ago.
For more information about visit the ABB and the CIM Systems websites.