FANUC Corporation

FANUC Corporation is a Japanese manufacturer of factory automation equipment, known for computer numerical controls (CNCs), servo motors, industrial robots and compact machining centers. FANUC's history began in the mid-1950s, when Fujitsu started a numerical-control development project led by engineer Seiuemon Inaba; FANUC states that it began NC development in 1955, and the business became an independent company, FANUC Ltd., in 1972. Its head office occupies a large forested site at the foot of Mount Fuji at 3580 Shibokusa, Oshino-mura, Minamitsuru-gun, Yamanashi. The shares trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under securities code 6954 and are included in the Nikkei 225 index. FANUC reports paid-in capital of about 69 billion yen.

The company is organised into three business divisions, FA, ROBOT and ROBOMACHINE, which it describes as working together as 'one FANUC' with a common service organisation. The FA division supplies CNC systems, servo motors and lasers; the ROBOMACHINE division builds compact machining centers, electric injection-molding machines and wire electrical-discharge machines; and the ROBOT division makes the robot lineup. FANUC says it operates more than 280 service locations supporting customers in over 100 countries and follows a policy of not ending support for FANUC products for as long as customers use them.

FANUC's robot range covers articulated arms from small assembly models up to the M-2000iA, which the company describes as the world's largest-payload robot, along with delta (parallel-link) robots, painting robots and the CR and CRX collaborative robot series. Applications listed by FANUC include welding, material handling, assembly and picking. FANUC produced its first robot in 1977, shipped its 500,000th robot in 2017 and reached cumulative production of one million robots in August 2023; the millionth unit was an R-2000iC/210F. Robot controllers integrate options such as iRVision machine vision, force sensing, Collision Guard and Zero Down Time (ZDT) predictive-maintenance monitoring.

FANUC's relevance to agriculture lies in food and produce handling, mainly in food processing and packaging rather than in field agriculture. The DR-3iB/6 STAINLESS delta robot, introduced at Automate 2022, has a 6 kg payload and 1,200 mm reach, a fully enclosed stainless-steel body rated IP69K for washdown, NSF H1 food-grade lubricant, secondary oil catch basins and self-draining surfaces, and is aimed at primary food handling in bakery, dairy and meat processing; FANUC states it meets USDA and FDA food-safety requirements. FANUC's regional subsidiaries regularly demonstrate robot and cobot cells for picking, packing and palletizing at packaging and food-processing trade shows such as PACK EXPO and IPPE.

FANUC sells and supports its products worldwide through regional subsidiaries and joint ventures, including FANUC America, FANUC Europe and the Shanghai-FANUC Robotics joint venture in China. Regional subsidiaries such as FANUC Deutschland and FANUC Austria operate as separate entities.