FAW-Volkswagen and UBTECH agree to test humanoid robots for factory logistics

A materials planner at one of FAW-Volkswagen's plants would look in this agreement for the route a robot walks and the part it carries. The agreement extends the existing relationship into logistics, where robots could eventually help move components and materials between work areas, according to TechRepublic ^[13], but it does not yet say which tasks will be tested ^[2].

TechRepublic states the pitch for humanoids as flexibility: they could handle different tasks without major changes to existing workspaces ^[11]. It then states the condition, which is that the flexibility matters only if the robots perform reliably at the pace production lines require ^[11]. Pace can be checked only against a specific task, and the companies have not picked one ^[2].

UBTECH's Liuzhou capacity is a supplier fact. TechRepublic cautions that this capacity is no evidence of a robot order from FAW-Volkswagen, nor of the Liuzhou plant already delivering to FAW-Volkswagen sites ^[7].

For anyone weighing a similar proposal, we'd sort it on two questions: has a task been named, and has an order been placed. A named task with an order is a rollout. A named task with no order is a pilot, because someone can say pass or fail at the end. An order with no named task means buying robots before deciding what they will do. No task and no order is a demonstration, and the agreement itself speaks of building demonstration scenarios ^[3]. On TechRepublic's account, this agreement has neither an order nor a named task ^[2]. It falls in that last group, and the outlet calls it a testing program ^[14].

Before a proposal like this gets plant time, we'd want it turned into a pilot by writing down one task and one pass measure. The cost is that a named task narrows what the robot gets to show, and the flexibility pitch loses its best argument.