Humanoid robots: not for giant factories, but for real ones
In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about humanoid robots and collaborative robots.
Too often, however, this debate remains abstract and disconnected from the everyday reality of those who actually produce.
Anyone working in a machine shop, a medical department, or a flexible production line knows this well: the real problem today is not technology, but people.
Not because high-level skills are missing, but because flexible operational roles are missing, people able to carry out repetitive, variable, not particularly “glamorous” tasks that are nonetheless essential.
Where traditional automation fails
Classic automation works extremely well when:
production volumes are high
products are standardized
batches are large
But a huge part of European industry does not operate under these conditions.
We are talking about:
mechanical workshops
medical and pharmaceutical departments
low- and medium-volume production
frequent format changes and product code changes
In these environments, rigid production lines are too expensive and insufficiently adaptable.
A concrete example: the machines we already design
At Engmotion, we design and build automatic and semi-automatic machines for the medical and pharmaceutical sectors.
Machines such as E-Lab Filler, which are conceived from the very beginning to coexist with a human operator.
These are machines where:
format changes are frequent
the operator supervises the process
fast interventions are an integral part of production
And this is where a natural question arises:
→ if a machine is designed for human interaction, why shouldn’t it be natural to integrate a humanoid robot?
The robot as a “digital industrial operator”
We are not talking about demonstrative robots or trade-show concepts.
We are talking about robots performing very concrete tasks:
loading materials and components
managing format changeovers
restarting machines with the correct program
handling simple anomalies
separating non-conforming parts
moving products toward sterilization or shipment
They do not replace humans.
They replace repetitive, low-skilled jobs that are increasingly difficult to staff.
The real bottleneck: CNC workshops
Anyone working in mechanical manufacturing experiences this every day.
In large companies, the problem barely exists:
automatic warehouses
long production runs
dedicated systems
But what about the thousands of small and medium-sized workshops across Europe?
They need someone who:
opens the machine
changes the part
positions it correctly
selects the correct program
restarts the process
removes the finished part
repeats
This role is in demand everywhere.
It must be extremely flexible.
And today, it is very hard to find.
Current market solutions are often:
expensive
insufficiently flexible
tied to a single part or a single machine
For SMEs, they are simply not the answer.
Why humanoid robots are different
A humanoid robot, if properly designed and correctly integrated, is not a rigid production line.
It is a flexible operator, capable of working on multiple machines, with multiple part codes, in environments already designed for humans.
This is why we believe that:
this is not a futuristic vision
but a concrete response to a very real problem
Those who start now, with real expertise and real industrial use cases, will build a significant competitive advantage.
We are already working on this, because we do not want to be caught unprepared by what we see as an inevitable industrial transformation.
A final thought
We do not need to imagine factories without people.
We need to free people from jobs that fewer and fewer are willing to do.
Technology is ready.
Workshops are less prepared.
But the need is obvious.
As Federico Faggin reminds us in his reflections on technology and consciousness:
-tools should not diminish human value, but amplify it, by relieving people from repetitive and alienating tasks and allowing them to focus on judgment, responsibility, creativity, and decision-making.
The question is not if this transformation will happen.
The question is who will guide it first, and with a clear awareness of the role of both humans and machines.