Association work and institutions

With over 3,200 members, the VDMA (German Engineering Federation) is the largest network organization of mechanical engineering in Germany. The association represents Germany's largest industrial employer sector with 1.35 million employees in mechanical and plant engineering. KUKA is a member and active in various committees, e. g. in the VDMA Robotics + Automation Association with its three specialist departments Robotics, Machine Vision and Integrated Assembly Solutions. The robotics department brings together players in the industry and focuses on important future and trend topics such as national and international security standardization, OPC UA and human-robot collaboration.

The European robotics association EUnited Robotics represents the robotics industry in Europe. Members include manufacturers, component suppliers and system integrators. KUKA is a member of the association and represented on the executive board.

EUnited Robotics was founded in 2004 with the aim of encouraging economic progress, high production quality, cost efficiency, improved quality of life and job creation. The association serves as a cooperation platform for decision-makers and market leaders from research and industry. The cooperation partners include the Fraunhofer Institute and the Technical University of Munich.

KUKA is also active in the European non-profit organization EFFRA (the European Factories of the Future Research Association). EFFRA connects leading representatives of European production technology with the aim of supporting key industries in Europe. KUKA champions topics of key significance for robot-based automation.

Uniting private and public resources, EFFRA jointly develops calls for proposals together with the European Commission, for example, relating to funded projects on application-oriented research topics.

As a robot manufacturer, KUKA is involved on an international level in the global robotics umbrella organization IFR (International Federation of Robotics) and has been in leadership roles there for decades. Beyond this, KUKA is a member of the respective national robotics associations – such as the RIA (Robotic Industries Association, North America), JARA (Japan Robot Association), CRIA (China Robot Industry Alliance) and VDMA (Robotics + Automation, Germany). The goal is the further development, promotion, networking and representation of the robotics industry as well as research and development in the areas of industrial and service robotics.

Each year, the IFR Statistical Department publishes the World Robotics statistics – a detailed statistics report on robot installations, user industries, applications and robot types in around 50 countries. The IFR is also the coordinator of the International Symposium on Robotics (ISR), which has taken place annually since 1970. This is one of the oldest robotics research conferences dedicated to showcasing technology trends in robotics and Industrie 4.0.

How can Germany become the factory supplier for Industrie 4.0 as well? How can Germany further boost its competitiveness as a production location with Industrie 4.0? Industrie 4.0 Platform was founded to answer such questions. Here, companies like KUKA want to make a major impact together with their employees, trade unions and associations as well as the scientific and political communities.

KUKA is involved particularly in Working Group 5, addressing the topics of work, education and training.

Together with SAP and seven other companies, KUKA has announced the founding of the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance in 2019 at the Hanover Fair. The Open Industry 4.0 Alliance was founded as a registered association in October 2019. The goal of the Alliance: to drive forward digitization in factories and overcome existing stand-alone solutions. The focus is on consistent and secure connectivity from the machine to the cloud. The Open Industry 4.0 Alliance aims to enable up to 80 percent of the machines in a Smart Factory to communicate with each other. To achieve this, the alliance relies on existing communication standards. Machines from different manufacturers can speak a common language. Digitization is simplified and accelerated. "If we as members of the OI4 Alliance appear together at our customers' premises, we have a completely different relevance and impact than if we were to knock on the door alone", says Dr. Christian Liedtke, who focuses on strategic alliances at KUKA. Joint appearances with existing and potentially new customers are currently on the agenda. Important to know: The Open Industry 4.0 Alliance acts in addition to other existing alliances. It works across all industries - because machines from a wide variety of manufacturers are located in most factory buildings.