Shimano designs robots for delicate assemblies

Low volume means different things to different companies; at Shimano Industrial, the world's largest maker of gears for bicycles, low volume involves production runs of up to 30,000 units/month. Medium volume involves 50,000–100,000 units/month, and to qualify as high volume, runs need to be over 200,000/month. In fact, the biggest run — a crank lever for a bicycle — involves 800,000 units monthly.