The presentation by Munich-based Universal Robots GmbH at HANNOVER MESSE 2017 had never before been so practice-based. In conjunction with four integration partners, the market leader in collaborative robotics used its stand to offer an in-depth look at the wide range of potential applications for the UR3, UR5 and UR10 robot arms. The new trade fair concept aimed in particular to show end customers how easily and cost-efficiently the flexible lightweight robots can now be integrated - not least through the Universal Robots Academy online training program, which was premiered at HANNOVER MESSE 2017.

The free Universal Robots Academy training platform with unlimited access will also help less experienced employees start up and program 'cobots' thanks to its well structured and easy to understand content. This will further reduce the time and costs involved in integrating automation solutions. "As a pioneer in collaborative robotics, our products have been firmly established on the market for a number of years," explains Helmut Schmid, Managing Partner and General Manager Western Europe at Universal Robots. "Our trade fair visitors are now therefore no longer interested simply in our basic product. They come to us with specific aims and requests for applications." The rapid progress of Industry 4.0 isn’t just putting the focus back on the age-old method of "earning by doing", which probably dates back to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, but is turning it on its head to create "doing by learning".