Want to Transform Factory Robots? First, Be Transformed by the Factory

Source: Ti Media

Article | Ju Shen Zhi, Author | Zhong Qingyuan, Editor | Yue Shisan

On September 30, the American humanoid robot company Figure announced the final fate of Figure 02: a furnace in Finland.

The Figure 02 being processed is the company's previous generation product. With the expansion of the new generation product Figure 03 fleet, the company does not intend to continue maintaining Figure 02, and disassembling each unit would be too time-consuming, even slowing down the release of Figure 04. Therefore, most Figure 02 units have said goodbye, with only a few remaining in the headquarters.

However, before retiring, Figure 02 left some things behind.

According to Figure's disclosure, Figure 02 had operated over 1,250 hours in BMW's Spartanburg factory in the U.S., completing the loading of over 90,000 parts, with fault records from the production line pointing to a weak point: the forearm was the most frequently faulty part in the project.

Thus, for Figure 03, engineers redesigned the wrist electronics architecture, removing the original communication distribution board and dynamic cables, allowing the wrist motor controller to connect directly to the main computer. In June of this year, Figure 03 has already returned to BMW's factory, demonstrating new logistics sorting tasks.

Figure 02 performing production tasks in the BMW factory. Image source: Figure

The old robot's body was melted down, but the issues it exposed in the factory have already entered the design of the next generation.

This also raises a question for robot companies: who decides what a good robot should be like?

Being able to move boxes does not equal being able to take over a搬运工位; standing on a production line does not equal being able to follow it continuously. When customers start paying for a specific job, the robot company's technical list needs to be reordered. Some capabilities must be added, some plans need to be postponed, and even whether two legs are necessary has to be recalculated.

Humanoid robots have not yet transformed factories on a large scale, but factories have already begun to rewrite the standard of a 'good robot.' Next, the company that can most quickly turn these on-site requirements into products and take responsibility for the work after machine delivery will be the one that truly pulls ahead.

How to build a robot, the work station decides

The first round of transformation for robots in the factory is to require it to fully take over a task.

For customers, a capability only has a chance to become a reliable labor force if it truly covers all the requirements of a task. If a robot can only take over part of a manual task, the remaining operations still need to be done by humans; if a robot works for a few hours and then needs to charge, the production schedule has to adjust accordingly.

Walker S1 from Ubtech was once limited by its operational range. In 2025, Jiao Jichao, Vice President and Director of the Research Institute of Ubtech, admitted to the media that when developing this product, the company's understanding of industrial scenarios was not deep enough, and the robot could only cover a partial area of the workstation, making it difficult to provide real application value to customers.

By the time of Walker S2, Ubtech added hip flexibility, allowing the robot to bend and squat to pick up objects from the ground.

There is also charging. According to Jiao Jichao's introduction at the time, Walker S1 could work under high load for about three hours and then needed an hour to charge. To solve this downtime, Ubtech organized a dedicated team to develop autonomous battery swapping technology over nine months, allowing Walker S2 to swap batteries by itself.

Walker S2 reduces downtime during continuous operation through autonomous battery swapping. Image source: Ubtech

Being able to bend down and having a self-swapping battery may not seem like re-inventing the robot. But for a specific workstation, these modifications determine how much work the robot can take over and how much work will remain for humans.

The validation in the factory not only changed how robots should be designed but also changed the order in which Ubtech prioritized different types of work. Jiao Jichao explained that the company had previously tried assembling, gluing, and various other workstations, but after validation, they gradually shifted their focus to handling, sorting, and quality inspection.

Choosing workstations is also choosing the order of R&D. Which tasks to do first and which capabilities to prioritize first now start to be filtered by the actual work that can be implemented.

In the BMW sheet metal loading project, Figure faced requirements specific to seconds: a task cycle of 84 seconds, with loading taking 37 seconds; the target correct placement rate per shift was over 99%, with a goal of zero human intervention.

Such requirements will redefine what it means to 'be able to do it.' Once a robot is on the production line, putting parts in the designated location is not enough; it also has to do it correctly within the specified time repeatedly.

Going further, even the basic form of the robot can be influenced by factory operation requirements.

Wang He, founder of Galaxy General, said in 2025 that the company had laid out a bipedal design, but at the time, factory and retail customers needed mobility, grasping, and placing, so the product chose a wheeled chassis. His reason was that bipedal robots would bring noise and range issues, while wheeled products could be charged once every six to eight hours.

This June, CATL disclosed that Galaxy General's heavy-duty robot Galbot S1 has entered its smart production line, taking on tasks in the production of modules and battery packs. When introducing this machine, the customer highlighted its dual-arm 50 kg load capacity and 8-hour battery life.

When a job can be done with wheels, legs need to prove their additional value. Therefore, for robot companies, this is not just a question of choosing a chassis, but also a decision on which technology to introduce into products first and to face customers.

From covering the entire workstation, to reducing charging downtime, to choosing a chassis, factories are rewriting 'what technology can do' into 'what this job really needs'. Companies that can make this transformation have the opportunity to turn a single demonstration into a continuous business.

Delivery, is just the beginning

After delivering the robot, the company still cannot finish its job. What the customer wants is to complete the work every day. This responsibility will not end with the machine's delivery.

Therefore, for robot companies preparing to enter factories, if they want to sell robots as labor, they must take on the responsibility of ensuring that labor can work continuously.

Agility, an American robot company, first showcased the potential of Digit as a delivery robot accompanying autonomous vehicles.

In 2019, Agility announced a partnership with Ford: the car handles transportation on the road, while Digit, the two-legged robot, takes over the last leg of the delivery from the car to the delivery location. When the car arrives at the doorstep, the robot gets off and delivers the package to the front door.

A few years later, Digit, which had entered a multi-year commercial contract, was standing in a warehouse.

In a warehouse operated by logistics company GXO in Georgia, serving the fashion brand SPANX, autonomous mobile robots transport the boxes containing products, Digit takes over the boxes, places them on the conveyor belt, and sends them to the packaging workstation ahead. After a concept validation in 2023, GXO signed a multi-year agreement with Agility in 2024 to deploy Digit and the accompanying software Arc as a robotic service.

Digit is operating in the GXO warehouse. Photo source: Agility Robotics

Receiving the box, turning around, placing it down, and then receiving the next box. This repetitive action still needs to eliminate unnecessary steps.

When introducing improvements after a year of deployment in GXO, Agility disclosed that the team redesigned the navigation system to let the robot find the path with the fewest steps, reduce unnecessary movements during starting and sharp turns, and improve the efficiency of moving with a load. It needs to carry a load, repeatedly stop and turn around in narrow spaces.

The production line is not always smooth. If the downstream workstation is backed up, or employees are on break, Digit will first place the boxes aside, allowing the delivery mobile robot to continue passing through, and then replenish the stored boxes once the conveyor belt resumes.

At this point, Digit's task is no longer just moving boxes from one place to another, but rather a position within the production process. It needs to judge based on the status of upstream and downstream processes, deciding when to continue and when to wait.

On September 15th this year, Agility released Digit 5. The company directly attributed this redesign to the requirements received after the previous generation had been working in customer production sites for nearly three years.

According to the specifications published by the company, to take on more carrying tasks, Digit 5 increased the load capacity and reach height, and improved the ratio of work time to charging time from the previous 2:1 to 10:1, achieving '9 minutes of charging, 90 minutes of work'. At the same time, the new product also improved personnel detection and new safety control designs, aiming to reduce the reliance on isolation facilities during deployment.

However, improving the body only completes part of the delivery.

Agility's contract with GXO from the beginning included the accompanying software Arc. This platform handles mapping, workflow configuration, operation management, and troubleshooting, integrating Digit into existing automation equipment. With Digit 5, Agility further emphasized that through Arc, customers can view working time, throughput, and fault intervals, and connect warehouse management, warehouse execution, and manufacturing execution systems.

All these tasks require Agility to continuously invest human resources. Maps need to be built, tasks need to be configured, software needs to be connected, and faults need to be handled. On the surface, customers purchase a machine, but in reality, Agility takes on a continuous responsibility.

This continuous service has also entered Agility's pricing model. Customers can pay for deployment fees and ongoing robot service subscription fees, or purchase Digit and then buy software and maintenance services annually.

From the initial vision of delivering packages with Ford to the current task of moving boxes in GXO's warehouse, Digit has found a specific job. Around this job, Agility has expanded what it delivers to include enterprise software, system integration, and ongoing services.

It's not just about selling, but also about keeping it long-term

If a robot continues to work in real environments for several years, the issues continuously exposed by customers will eventually change the product's design.

The four-legged robot, which entered inspection sites earlier than humanoid robots, may already provide a reference.

In late 2019, Yunchudeshen collaborated with China Southern Power Grid's Digital Grid Research Institute to deploy the first generation of Jueying X10 for autonomous inspection in substations. One requirement that emerged was the need to work even on rainy days. Therefore, the X20, released in 2021, added waterproof and dust-proof capabilities, moving closer to all-weather inspection.

The issues become more detailed for the X30 beyond this point. Yun Shen mentioned in the product description that dust, dirt, and changing light conditions can affect the robot's autonomous charging, so they redesigned the charging positioning scheme; in response to customers' requirements for long-term operation, they corresponded to longer load续航 and quickly replaceable batteries.

These changes ultimately face the test of robots staying in real-world environments for a long time. The Ningxia unmanned wind farm project disclosed by Yun Shen in 2025 is about 10 kilometers away from the nearest populated area, making it inconvenient for people to arrive on site at any time, so the stability of the robot in completing inspections becomes even more important.

X30 performs unmanned inspection in the Ningxia Gobi unmanned wind farm. Image source: Yun Shen

In this project, the X30 can work with drones to achieve two inspections per day, each about 80 minutes, checking equipment such as transformers and isolation switches, and transmitting the results back to the platform.

The challenges of quadruped inspection and human-shaped transportation are different, but rain, dust, and charging docking have a common point: they are rarely the most shining capability of a robot, yet they may determine whether customers dare to continue assigning tasks to it tomorrow.

The requirements for human-shaped robots in the factory are also becoming more specific in this direction. Sales and revenue can indicate that the market is willing to pay, but what these robots are ultimately used for and whether they can complete a job long-term still need to be tested by the production site.

Yu Shi has turned human-shaped robots into a business with scale. Its August 2026 IPO filing disclosed that the revenue from human-shaped robots in 2025 was approximately 868 million yuan, accounting for 51.78% of main business revenue, exceeding that of quadruped robots.

According to the company's previous inquiry reply disclosure of the quarterly data by field in 2025, scientific research and education accounted for about 76% of the revenue from human-shaped robots. Here, scientific research and education also include technology companies and developers purchasing robots for secondary development, research, and model training. A considerable portion of these demands involves purchasing platforms for continuing development and research of new capabilities.

However, when robots truly enter production lines, what customers want to buy is a job that needs to be completed on time. Both types of demand can support business, but being good at selling robots to developers does not automatically win the recognition of production customers.

Selling a robot out may mean that a research and development project has just started; having a robot stay in the production line means it has to repeatedly deliver work results. The industry cannot use the prosperity of the former market to prematurely declare the victory of the latter market.

Looking further ahead, the capabilities worth betting on in the next round of competition may not all be hidden in more dazzling actions. Who can turn faults into the design of the next generation, and turn a customer's process into a product that can be continuously delivered, will have a better chance of retaining the first-mover advantage.

Figure 02 has withdrawn, but the problems it left behind in the BMW production line have entered Figure 03.

Jumping into the furnace is enough to be exciting, but what's more worth continuing to watch is how production lines are re-designing robot companies.

(Source: Taimi Media)

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