FANUC

In 1955, Fujitsu Ltd. approached Seiuemon Inaba (ja:稲葉清右衛門), who was then a young engineer, to lead a new subsidiary purposed to make the field of numerical control. This nascent form of automation involved sending instructions encoded into punched cards or magnetic tape to motors that controlled the movement of tools, effectively creating programmable versions of the lathes, presses, and milling machines. Within three years after spending heavily in R&D, he and his team of 500 employees shipped Fujitsu's first numerical-control machine to Makino Milling Machine Co. In 1972, the Computing Control Division became independent and FANUC Ltd. was established. The next phase of expansion would be computer numerical control, which relied on G-code, a standard programming language. At the time, the 10 largest CNC companies in the world were based in the U.S.; however, by 1982, FANUC had captured half of the world CNC market.

FANUC is listed on the first section of Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the TOPIX 100 and Nikkei 225 stock market indices. It is headquartered in Yamanashi Prefecture.

In 1982, FANUC entered into a joint venture with General Motors Corporation (GM), called GMFanuc Robotics Corporation, to produce and market robots in the United States. The new company was 50 percent owned by each partner and was based in Detroit, with GM providing most of the management and FANUC providing the products.

In 1986, GE Fanuc Automation Corporation was established in the US as a joint venture between FANUC and General Electric (GE). Under the joint venture company, three operating companies, GE Fanuc Automation North America, Inc., in the U.S., GE Fanuc Automation Europe S.A. in Luxembourg, and Fanuc GE Automation Asia Ltd. in Japan, were established (the Asian company was established in 1987). GE stopped making its own CNC equipment and turned its Charlottesville, Virginia, plant over to the new company, which produces FANUC CNC devices. FANUC adopted the German engineering slogan Weniger Teile, which means "fewer parts"; Machines with fewer parts are cheaper to produce and easier for automatons to assemble, resulting in higher reliability and lower manufacturing costs.

The company's clients include numerous U.S. and Japanese automobile and electronics manufacturers. The use of industrial robots has enabled companies like Panasonic in Amagasaki to run factories that produce 2 million television sets a month (mostly high-end plasma LCD screens) with just 25 people.

FANUC has over 240 joint ventures subsidiaries, and offices in over 46 countries. It is the largest maker of CNC controls by market share with 65% of the global market and is the leading manufacturer of factory automation systems.

Business units

FANUC is organized into three business units: FA, ROBOT, ROBOMACHINE.

FA (Factory Automation)

The FA group produces automation equipment and systems that can be implemented into custom industrial automation solutions. Products include servomotors, HMIs, and controls. FA is a foundational FANUC technology with roots back to the 1970's when FANUC was marrying its servomotor product with computers to create the field of computer numerical control technology. Today, FA products continue to be used to create automated systems in over 100 countries around the world. It is common for the FA group to deliver controls and servomotors to machine tool builders who integrate them into a conventional CNC machine. A significant proportion of the world's CNC machines are powered by FANUC controls.

ROBOT

The robot group integrates FANUC servomotor and control technology into robotic arms for use in industrial environments.

Robomachine

FANUC also produces a range of finished machines included ROBODRILL machining centers, ROBOSHOT injection molding machines, and ROBOCUT EDM machines.