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How Toyota Cut Manual Lifting and Boosted Safety With A Unique Cobot Installation
Toyota struggled with heavy and inefficient material handling until they combined a UR cobot with existing balancing equipment. They made lifting safer, faster, and far easier.
Catherine Bernier
August 06, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
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Toyota’s Tōchita Plant in Handa City, Japan, builds critical automotive components. But their production had a big challenge:
Heavy raw materials had to be moved by hand using hoists and lifting equipment.
Operators often had to come from distant areas to handle these jobs at random intervals. This wasn’t just tedious, it posed real safety risks and organizational issues.
And… It of course, exacerbated the labor shortage most manufacturers face worldwide.
“AI, and other new industries, young people tend to be more interested in those fields. So, in the future, whether we can secure enough workers is becoming a major challenge.”
Clearly, something had to change. And it did.
Toyota combined a Universal Robots UR10e cobot with an existing load balancer. The result?
Less manual lifting, safer processes, and more efficient operations!
Toyota staff working with a Universal Robots UR10e cobot. Image source.
Cobot Brand | Supplier | Application |
|---|---|---|
Universal Robots | Universal Robots | Material handling |
The Key Problems | How the Cobot Was Implemented | The Results |
Manual handling of heavy parts was risky, time-consuming, and labor-intensive. Lifting gear and hoists weren’t enough. | UR10e cobot combined with a balancer system and vision camera for safe, smart heavy-load handling, plus guided force mode for jig insertion. | Reduced work hours, improved safety, and created a compact, scalable automation system that operators love. |
Manual Lifting: Dangerous, Heavy, and Inefficient
Toyota Industries Corporation manufactures automotive components, meaning they regularly handle heavy materials.
Previously, workers lifted these heavy items using hoists, but manual handling meant constant safety risks.
Toyota staff uses a load balancer equipment to lift and carry heavy metal engine components. Image source.
And because the tasks were sporadic, workers had to be called from distant parts of the factory at unpredictable times.
It was inefficient, tiring, and risky. Which sounds a lot like a calling theme for cobots…
Cobots + Existing Equipment = Perfect Fit
Toyota considered several automation options, but traditional robots meant huge safety fences, complex setups, and inflexible workflows.
But cobots love flexibility, compact spaces, and variable tasks.
Toyota integrated their existing load balancer with a UR10e cobot.
They also added a vision system to handle random picking from bulk material piles.
Universal Robots UR10e uses a balancer integration to lift and handle the materials previously moved by humans. Image source.
The integration had its challenges at first. Load balancing and thrust fluctuations were tricky, but Toyota used the UR cobot’s built-in force sensor (force mode) to solve this perfectly.
Force Mode Magic: Smooth Handling, Maximum Safety
With the UR cobot’s force mode, Toyota overcame one of their biggest challenges, load oscillation.
"When using a balancer to perform material handling, thrust fluctuations occur, and in the normal position control mode, there’s a risk of protective stop. However, by using the force mode enabled by the built-in force sensor in the UR robot, we were able to direct the thrust in a specified direction, which enabled smooth material handling,"
The cobot system includes minimal fencing combined with safety laser scanners, creating compact yet safe working conditions.
Workers can operate comfortably, knowing the cobot will automatically pause if anyone enters an unsafe area.
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The Results: Safe, Compact, Efficient
The automation project delivered huge results:
Reduced labor hours for material handling tasks
Improved worker safety, eliminating risky manual lifting
Kept compact workspaces, using minimal safety installations
Allowed gradual automation scaling and future flexibility
Now, Toyota staff use cobots with balancer integration to move heavy machinery parts without the risk of human harm or operational inefficiencies.
But… They won’t stop there.
Toyota is exploring automating even more processes, like engine lifting and conveyor-based tasks.
“By introducing a collaborative robot first, learning while using it, and gradually expanding its applications, automation can progress,”
Learn more about Toyota’s success below:
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Enjoy your week!
The Cobot Spotlight Team