Germany had many industrial robotics companies. Not only KUKA, like Japan has.
The idea behind selling KUKA is, the very same narrative like in any startup. The robot itself has become a commodity. It was clear, that China will be cheaper in production of this commodity in the long term. The know-how is not in the production of such robots. The idea was to pivot more into integration. But that is very capital intensive. As big company you are limited in the possibilities to raise money. An alternative is to have a bigger company with big pockets to cooperate with or even selling the business and stay somehow as an independent business unit. I have seen this with small companies who needed to raise money. I have seen this with big companies.
BTW, one of the people involved in pivoting was one who in the 1980/1990 made the automation for the KUKA robots as a small engineering office. About a fews years late he got bought by KUKA when they discovered that this small engineering office had the whole knowledge and there was almost no knowledge within KUKA.
The idea behind selling KUKA is, the very same narrative like in any startup. The robot itself has become a commodity. It was clear, that China will be cheaper in production of this commodity in the long term. The know-how is not in the production of such robots. The idea was to pivot more into integration. But that is very capital intensive. As big company you are limited in the possibilities to raise money. An alternative is to have a bigger company with big pockets to cooperate with or even selling the business and stay somehow as an independent business unit. I have seen this with small companies who needed to raise money. I have seen this with big companies.
BTW, one of the people involved in pivoting was one who in the 1980/1990 made the automation for the KUKA robots as a small engineering office. About a fews years late he got bought by KUKA when they discovered that this small engineering office had the whole knowledge and there was almost no knowledge within KUKA.