World Robot Summit WRS2025
Manufacturing
Robotics Challenge

Overview

Host
WRS Executive Committee
Co-host
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
Venue
Aichi Sky Expo (Aichi)
Date
December 12 (Fri.) to 14 (Sun.), 2025

This competition aims to realize future production systems
that can quickly and efficiently respond to ever-changing production demands
in a streamlined and waste-free manner.

Challenge (Competition) Details

Background

  • The decrease in the working-age population (in the 2050s, the working-age population ratio in major advanced countries is expected to fall below 60%) is becoming a serious issue due to labor shortages.
  • Considering the recent concentration of workers in the service industry (the proportion of workers in the tertiary sector has risen to over 70% of the total workforce in major advanced countries), it is expected that the labor force in the "manufacturing sector" will continue to decline.
  • It is necessary to accelerate the development of robots that can be applied to the "manufacturing sector.
  • "At WRS2020, a competition was held to challenge assembly techniques for belt drive units using industrial robots. In WRS2025, the competition will focus on system integration technologies, with a product packaging example, to promote the social implementation of robots.

Competition Details

The competition will focus on the process of packing various types of everyday goods, with irregular shapes, into boxes of different sizes.
The competition will evaluate the overall system's speed, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.

While the task itself is simple, the competition aims to assess the system's ability to meet production requirements (such as takt time and cost) and its adaptability to new products and fluctuating production volumes.
Image of competition details

Competition Objectives

  • Needs in the Manufacturing Industry
    Automation of production processes that are difficult to automate due to factors such as cost and system uptime, including variant and small-lot production and multi-product manufacturing environments.
  • Goal
    The goal is to promote automation through the development of technologies and system integration suitable for automating small-lot, multi-product processes with fluctuating production volumes, leading to the widespread use of robots.
  • Expected Technological Elements
    The development of sensing, picking, and supply/discharge mechanisms, along with the appropriate system integration technologies for these components.