Konica Minolta has partnered with Diverseco as co-distributors and exclusive systems integrators for Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR), a leading manufacturer of collaborative mobile robots.

The partnership expands on Konica Minolta’s existing relationship with MiR, which dates back to September 2018.

MiR’s robots deliver a high level of automation to companies in the manufacturing and logistics sector. Konica Minolta’s national manager of robotics and innovation Martin Keetels says the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the market for automation within manufacturing to explode.

“Konica Minolta has seen sales of the MiR products surge by more than 350 per cent last financial year, demonstrating that there is significant room in the market for growth,” he says.

“We believe this growth will only increase as a result of COVID-19 and the industry will be bolstered by trends such as reshoring, business continuity and social distancing. There is no doubt workplaces of the future will benefit significantly from autonomous robots.”

Keetels says the Diverseco partnership ties into Konica Minolta’s growth plans.

“Diverseco is one of Australasia’s leading automation solution providers, with deep knowledge of customer environments and their systems,” he says

“We’re excited to partner with Diverseco to bring MiR solutions to more customers.”

Diverseco will work with Konica Minolta to develop MiR solutions for customers. Those solutions will include design, programming, installation, training and full support.

Diverseco executive general manager for automation Tim Francis says the product offerings of the partnership will be a crucial element of success across industry.

“Continuing our suite of partnerships with outstanding robotics companies, we’re proud to have Konica Minolta and MiR alongside our other product offerings, which are pivotal to the success of various industries,” he says.

“MiR plays an important role in the evolving industry, logistics and manufacturing sectors by adding highly reliable, robust and safe collaborative autonomous mobile robots to organisations looking to improve their overall efficiencies through automation.

“Working with Konica Minolta will let us pool our resources to ensure customers get maximum return on their investment in automation.”