French robot manufacturer Sepro Group is pushing to grow its North American market by assembling robots at its Warrendale, Pa., subsidiary company.
Sepro America LLC claims a 25 percent U.S. market share and wants to quickly push that to 30 percent and eventually 50 percent, said Jean-Michel Renaudeau, Sepro Group managing director, at a July celebration commemorating the subsidiary's10th anniversary. Sepro America now accounts for about 20 percent of Sepro's worldwide sales and the U.S. is Sepro's largest market. Renaudeau used the anniversary party to show off an 11,000-square-foot expansion of the Warrendale facility, which more than doubles manufacturing space. Sepro America already performs systems integration and builds integrated automation cells in Warrendale.
Beginning in January, robots for injection molding machines with 700 tons of clamping force and greater will be assembled in the expanded plant. Initially, components will come from France, but larger items, such as beams, will eventually be sourced locally. The goal is to make between 30 and 40 robots next year and 100 in 2019.
"Our target is to have robots made in America," Renaudeau said. "We would like to have a big footprint here. The future of Sepro is most certainly in North America."Renaudeau said that eventually robots assembled in Warrendale also will be shipped to Canada, Mexico and possibly South America.
Worldwide, Sepro Group sold about 2,700 robots last year. About 6,000 Sepro robots are installed in North America, out of about 30,000 around the world.
Sepro America is headed by Jim Healy, VP of sales and marketing, and Bill Geddis, VP of sales and automation. The new assembly operation will be directed by Loic Legendre, VP of service. Sepro America has 36 employees and two more will be added in 2018.
Sepro Group is also expanding production capacity at its La Roche-sur-Yon headquarters plant and building a training center there.
