FANUC Introduces Zero Down Time Application

Zero Down Time Application from FANUC FANUC continues to increase its growth potential in the European market. FANUC builds long-term relationships with its customers through the "product quality" and "longevity" of its robots, and its more than 700,000 spare components enable robot repairs in less than 20 hours. FANUC, a global leader in numerical control systems, produces solutions that touch the future in factory automation with its high-quality and functional robots while building reliable relationships with its customers. FANUC's Zero Down Time application, which guarantees high performance over many years with its high-quality product range, notifies customers two weeks in advance that robots require maintenance. In addition, the fact that 99.97% of all manufactured products contain more than 700,000 spare components reduces service interruptions to zero.

Longer Service Life with Fewer Components

FANUC Europe President and CEO Shinichi Tanzawa, noting that maintenance costs often exceed the robot's original purchase price over many years, stated: "We provide our customers with three vital factors to make the right decision: functionality, price and quality. At FANUC, we always emphasize that quality is as important as functionality and price. As a result, our robots have a service life twice as long as the most competitive products. Additionally, all our development activities focus on cost reduction, higher reliability and fewer components. We constantly try to simplify our products by using fewer parts. This helps us reduce costs and increase reliability. Fewer parts means fewer failures."  

Two-Week Advance Failure Warning with Zero Down Time (ZDT) Application

Tanzawa noted that reliability and quality have become more important for customers in Europe, and that this is provided by the service guarantee offered by FANUC, saying: "One of our preventive maintenance solutions is what we call Zero Down Time. Some of our customers use this tool comprehensively to plan maintenance appointments. Our goal here is to notify two weeks in advance that a robot needs maintenance before it fails. We achieve this by integrating FANUC servo motors into our robots and manufacturing machines that produce the necessary signals to indicate preventive maintenance requirements."

Robots Repaired in Less Than 20 Hours

Tanzawa, stating that the "Service First" policy enables robots to be used trouble-free for many years, said: "Across Europe, the total time between a customer making a phone call and the successful repair of their robot is less than 20 hours. We also have spare parts in stock covering 99.97% of all products we have manufactured to date. We have 360,000 spare parts in our European warehouse alone, and we have access to more than 700,000 spare components including stocks located elsewhere in Europe. This allows us to repair any robot in less than 20 hours. Currently, even if we miss 1 out of 4,000 spare parts requests, we can have spare parts brought from another FANUC region outside Europe within one to two weeks."