Businesses are inclining towards more simplified operations and processes, and thus practicing automation to save their valuable time on doing monotonous jobs. Robotics accompanying automation has brought a substantial change in the IT sector and is reshaping the future of the same. Taking this evolution into consideration, Luis Villalon founded Target Robotics in 2001, starting operations only by himself. Since the beginning, the company policy was automation only with robots. Luis bet for his vision of the automation. He was right, as now robotics is the main technology of automation, there is no full automation without robotics.
Target Robotics creates simple solutions, based on amazing capacities of robots. The company has the ability to develop almost all industrial processes with robots, even the craziest applications, using all new technologies on the robots, advanced functions and complex programs. Compared versus the conventional machinery, TR guarantees to reduce the system cost at least 50%, but increasing the production capacity by double, at least. For every market or industry, TR systems became the best-selling solutions for their exponential productivity and disruptive concepts.
Most Experimented Automation Company
One of the biggest challenges, and now is one of the mayor assets of the company, was to create and still conserving at professional engineers’ team. Since the beginning, Luis’s strategy was to contract young and just graduated engineers and invest on a Robotic lab to train them during the internship university programs. In the first year, the revenue increased was more than 50%, and continued like this every year, constantly for now 18 years, even in the 2009-2010 automotive industry crisis, thanks to its sales policy, which diversifies to general industry market. Today the company is the most experimented and biggest automation company in Mexico, with more than 18 years in robotics, and more than 100 design engineers.
Staying Ahead in the Competition
Target Robotics believes that as technology is moving fast, all the design engineers must be inside a permanent and evaluative training program, not only to understand and apply new technologies, but also to research and develop new methods of research. These continuous upgrading experiences maintain TR on a top competitive level.
Secondly, the company is also of the opinion that in general industries there are many customers with no robots in their production lines. They must implement automation in order to be competitive. When they decide to use robots, their people are usually afraid. TR make the system start-up and stay at the plant with the final users for extended periods, training to production & maintenance people, guide managers through the ramp up of the process to implement robots in their factory, with the challenge to introduce and convince all personnel into this new mindset, helping them to understand it and learn how to use it. This support is until the end, when everybody likes robotics. TR considers this effort of many weeks or months, as an investment, because in the near future, they will accept and even prefer robots than conventional machinery.
A Robotics Integrator and Visionary
Luis Villalon is the Founder and CEO of Target Robotics. He has become one of the first robotics integrator in Mexico by the way he leads the company to become one of the biggest and reliable robotics systems integrators in Mexico. Due the necessity to research and develop much more robotic systems to re-invent many manufacture processes, Luis Villalon’s vision to influence not only over industry, but also over young Mexican society is commanded by the biggest project of his professional life. He envisions starting the new TARGET ROBOTICS UNIVERSITY in 2020, where hundreds of design engineers will get the innovation, disruptive, exponential and continuous changing acknowledgement to develop robotics systems for all kind of industries and all type of industrial process. In the coming years, this will be the origin of a research, development and manufacturing center for the new generation of robotics systems that will be competitive and exportable all over the world.
Reinventing the Manufacturing
Target Robotics is reinventing the manufacturing. It believes and proves that mass production theory is obsolete. Small to medium manufacturing units with robotic technology brings a better way to get the high productivity and flexibility that the new markets demand, with low manufacturing cost and low machinery investment.
For example, this year TR develops a multifunctional robotic system for packaging. Many packaging processes are integrated in one system, using all software robot features like decision maker based on vision system, auto recovery functions, safety compliance, auto diagnosis, plug & play, small footprint and completely autonomous. Before this new disruptive system, the customer usually purchased many stations, one for each process, full of mechanisms. The cost of these stations was three times higher; the footprint was ten times bigger and requires four operators per shift. The power consumption, spare parts, complexity to adjust and low flexibility was a nightmare. The customer reduces the return of investment from 4.5 years to less than one.
Robotics Unlocking Opportunities
Target Robotics is of firm belief that automation will become robotization. General industry will be robotized as automotive industry is now, or more. General industry, opposite as Automotive, enables the integrators and research companies to innovate and develop new and innovative solutions. TR knows there are thousands of processes to robotize in general industry, there are thousands of conventional machines to upgrade, and thus, there is a new way to manufacture any kind products. This situation is opening many opportunities area to the new generation of disruptive entrepreneurs who will compete with the actual manufacturing companies. This is the new era of robotics industry, which will rise with the people who have the processes acknowledge and the technology owners. The cost of the machines to produce almost everything is decreasing very fast, and more people are getting access to it.
Leading the New Generation
According to Target Robotics, in the coming years, industry 4.0 will transform the way we produce and distribute goods, and this change will be leaded by the visionary entrepreneurs, who understand the new model to make business based on technology and knowledge.
Testimonial from Target Robotics’ Client
“Target Robotics gave me for the first time in 65 years of the company a real disruptive and exponential solution, after we decide to start our new production line, our traditional experience guide us to first build up a 5,000 m2 building in order to attend daily 80 operators per shift with a full infrastructure with dining room, bathrooms, dressing rooms, meeting rooms, living village, recreative space and many other investments that didn’t guarantee the full compromise off the operators, also to hire them is elementary to subcontract an agency to recruit the best ones, plus many others investments that can´t give us any guaranty. When we meet TR their first solution concepts proposal sounded like something unreal, crazy and risky but I always knew that I must give them a chance for the experience, expertise and compromise they always improve to make this kind of solutions happen. I confess that though the process I doubt many times of my decision and sometimes contemplate to go back to basics but at the ends it worth. Now magically they substitute 80 operators per shift only with 12 simple robots in a 50 m² space, that also is plug & play. Now I have 4,950 m² free space to produce more products, and a system that I could install on my garage. This was just revolutionary.” Ing. Marcelo Lozano APELSA.