Companies in Kitakyushu

Yaskawa didn't just build automation equipment — it invented the word for the field. In 1969, the Japanese company coined 'mechatronics' (mecha-nics plus elec-tronics) to describe its own technology direction, and the term became the global name for the fusion of mechanical and electronic engineering. Founded in 1915 in Kitakyushu, Yaskawa is now the world's largest supplier of servo motors and one of the 'big four' industrial robot makers. The company's core products are the motion-control systems that make machines move precisely: servo motors, servo drives, and motion controllers that are industry standards in machine tools, semiconductor equipment, and packaging lines. Its MOTOMAN industrial robots — including the famous 'Yaskawa robots dance' demonstrations — weld, assemble, and handle parts in factories worldwide, and its AC drives control the motors on everything from cranes to conveyors. With about 18,000 employees and annual revenue near ¥600 billion, Yaskawa supplies the automation backbone of factories across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Its robots and servos are also the enabling technology for the collaborative robots and human-robot coexistence trend — the direction the factory floor is headed, and the direction Yaskawa has been pushing since it named the field half a century ago.