Mid Term Goals
FANUC plans to maintain its strong structure, continue to grow and to achieve the ambitious V5000 sales and profit targets.
FANUC established the V3000 Plan during the fiscal year which ended March 2004 to increase FANUC LTD's sales to 300 billion yen or 3000 Oku yen, and its ordinary income to 100 billion yen or 1000 Oku yen in five years. FANUC's sales and profit performance have far outpaced the V3000 plans, thanks to company-wide efforts and the recent favorable market conditions.
These successes enabled FANUC to re-plan the achievement of the V3000 one year ahead of the original schedule and to initiate new performance planning in the development and implementation of the V5000 Plan on a consolidated basis in the year ended March 2006. In this plan, FANUC set new goals to achieve 500 billion yen or 5000 Oku yen in sales and 150 billion yen or 1500 Oku yen in ordinary income on a consolidated basis in 2008. All of the FANUC organizations, laboratories, sales teams, factories and overseas related companies, including BEIJINGFANUC Mechatronics CO., LTD., FANUC TAIWAN LTD, FANUC KOREA CORPORATION, FANUC Robotics, and GE FANUC Automation CNC Europe S.A., will work cooperatively to accomplish the V5000 Plan objectives.
FANUC has five main product lines: FA products including CNCs and servo motors; robots; Robomachines; ROBONANOs; and lasers. These products are symbolized in the five vectors in the FANUC emblem, aimed in the same upward direction, and each striving to become the highest vector for FANUC.
Meeting the V5000 Targets
To achieve the V5000 targets, FANUC will continue to focus on research and development, expand its operations in China, India, Russia, and other promising areas as they develop and automate its factories with intelligent robots.
FANUC plans to develop its business in new markets including China, India and Russia
Capital investments remained robust in automotive and motorcycle related industries in China, India and Thailand, which generated vigorous demands for machine tools and robots in these countries. At the same time, there is an active investment in the Information Technology industry in Asia, especially in China, which is driving the increased demand for ROBOSHOTs and ROBODRILLs. On a smaller scale, new markets also are emerging in Eastern Europe and Russia for CNCs, robots and Robomachines.
FANUC supports sales expansion in these areas by sending carefully selected, well qualified key people overseas from FANUC Headquarters and by training engineers based overseas at FANUC Headquarters and returning them to their local companies. This approach improves the technical strength of the promising local companies and strengthens the interdependent personal relationships throughout the FANUC structure. FANUC also closely exchanges information through teleconferences and monthly sales meetings to enable timely action. FANUC is committed to expanding its operations in these key areas by strengthening its support of sales promotions.
Maintaining and Expanding the CNC Market Shares
FANUC Computer Numerical Controls, or CNCs, and servo motors are the most widely used controllers in the world for machining metal parts. In 1956, FANUC succeeded in developing the first private sector numerical control (NC) in Japan. It was called NC at that time because it did not come with a computer. Since then, FANUC has focused on technological development of NCs, CNCs and servo motors, and maintains significant market share in the sale of these products in Japan and overseas.
To maintain and further increase its top market share in global markets, FANUC has launched the next generation CNCs. The Series 0i/0i Mate, Series 16i/18i/21i, and Series 30i/31i/32i CNCs respond well to a wide variety of simple and advanced machine tool requirements that include 5 axis machines, compound machines and multi-path lathes. FANUC also sells and services an abundant array of servo motors, including the AC servo motor. The αis servo motor series for high speed and high precision nano control, the economical AC servo motor βis series, and the linear motor Lis series, the next generation ultra high-speed and high-precision feed system are available to meet a variety of requirements necessary for maximizing machine tool efficiency and output.
In sales activities, FANUC has focused on promoting its products in the Chinese and Indian markets, where high growth rates continue. FANUC has been successful in enhancing sales in both the amount of revenue generated and in the number of units sold, while maintaining high market share.
In response to the growing markets of Eastern Europe and Russia, FANUC has strengthened its presence by increasing its sales and service locations and staff.
Strengthening FANUC's robot and Robomachine business
Currently, automotive manufacturers are building new factories in Japan, Europe and the United States, and also in China and India. In addition, they are expanding production capacities of their existing facilities. Capitalizing on its large market share in the automotive sector, FANUC has focused on robot sales to European automotive and related parts manufacturers to further expand FANUC's share of the European automotive manufacturing markets.
In an effort to develop new markets in addition to the traditional automotive market for robots, FANUC has promoted robotization of machining factories operated by non-automotive industries with FANUC's intelligent robots in close coordination with the machine tool builders. As a result, sales to these general industries have increased significantly to a level comparable to that of the automotive market.
All models of Robomachines, ROBOSHOTs, ROBOCUTs and ROBODRILLs, are enjoying increased sales, driven by the global recovery of the Information Technology (IT) industry and the robust global automotive parts industry. ROBOSHOT sales have specifically increased in China, especially in the now thriving IT industrial sector, while its sales have also increased in Japan and in the United States.
Increasing Production Capacity
To increase production capacity to realize the V5000 targets and to maintain strong global cost competitiveness, FANUC has introduced 10 Robot Cells in its machining factories. A Robot Cell is an advanced automation system capable of long hours of unmanned machining by the use of intelligent robots. Every FANUC factory is highly robotized to increase its production capacity without increasing the number of factory workers.
To respond to a significantly increased demand for servo motors and amplifiers, FANUC built a new servo motor factory and has started production this year. This new factory utilizes intelligent robots extensively to increase the rate of production, to reduce production costs, and to achieve and maintain global cost competitiveness. FANUC also capitalizes on advanced IT technologies in its production lines to reduce product delivery time.
