Industrial Automation Magazine India

VDMA Robotics: Change in the Executive Board

Published on : Friday 08-09-2023

With this appointment, Thomas Hähn succeeds Daniel Bunse, formerly CEO of Rethink Robotics.

Frankfurt, September 7, 2023 - The Board of VDMA Robotics has appointed Thomas Hähn, Founder & CEO of United Robotics Group, as a new member of the Board.

With this appointment, Thomas Hähn succeeds Daniel Bunse, formerly CEO of Rethink Robotics, who resigned from the VDMA Robotics board for statutory reasons.

"With my now 30 years of experience in factory automation, industrial robotics, and service robotics, I am pleased to be able to promote the plurality of the VDMA Robotics Group. As a member of the board, I would like to work to sustainably secure the competitiveness of Germany and Europe as a business location," says Thomas Hähn.

The VDMA represents more than 3,600 German and European mechanical and plant engineering companies. The industry stands for innovation, export orientation, and SMEs. The companies employ around 3 million people in the EU-27, more than 1.2 million of them in Germany alone. This makes mechanical and plant engineering the largest employer among the capital goods industries, both in the EU-27 and in Germany. In the European Union, it represents a turnover volume of an estimated 860 billion euros. Around 80 percent of the machinery sold in the EU comes from a manufacturing plant in the domestic market.

As part of the VDMA Robotics + Automation trade association, VDMA Robotics has more than 140 members: Their product portfolio ranges from robot manufacturing to integration of robot systems to robotics products. Robotics is characterized by a high degree of innovation, market growth, and rapid technical developments. In addition, we unite the players in the industry and deal with important future and trend topics, such as safety standardization, OPC UA, and human-robot collaboration. Key activities include statistical analysis and market surveys, marketing activities, standards development, public relations, trend studies, trade fair policy as well as networking events and conferences.