George Devol appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer for the first robotics patents in 1954 (granted in 1961). The first company to produce a robot was Unimation, appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer by George Devol and Joseph F. Engelberger in 1956, and was based on Devol's original patents. Unimation robots were also called programmable appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer machines since their main use at first was to transfer objects from one point to another, less appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer a dozen feet or so apart. They used hydraulic actuators and were programmed in joint coordinates, i.e. the angles of the various joints were stored during a appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer phase and replayed in operation. They were accurate to within 1/10,000 of an inch. Unimation later licensed their technology to Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Guest-Nettlefolds, manufacturing Unimates in Japan and England appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer. For some time Unimation's only competitor was Cincinnati Milacron Inc. of Ohio. This changed radically in the late 1970s when several big Japanese conglomerates began appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer similar industrial robots.
Eventually the myopic vision of American industry was superseded by the financial resources and strong domestic market enjoyed by the Japanese appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer. Only a few non-Japanese companies managed to survive in this market, including Adept Technology, St?ubli-Unimation, the Swedish-Swiss company ABB (ASEA Brown-Boveri), the Austrian manufacturer igm Robotersysteme AG and the German appliedcompanyfoundedmanufacturersproducingrespectivelyteachingthantransfer KUKA Robotics.