BMW Manufacturing has signed an agreement with California-based Figure — a company developing autonomous humanoid robots — to deploy general purpose bots in its manufacturing plants. The German carmaker’s subsidiary said it will pursue a milestone-based approach consisting of two phases. Figure’s robots claim to enable the automation of difficult, unsafe, or tedious tasks throughout […]
BMW Manufacturing has signed an agreement with California-based Figure — a company developing autonomous humanoid robots — to deploy general purpose bots in its manufacturing plants.
The German carmaker’s subsidiary said it will pursue a milestone-based approach consisting of two phases.
Figure’s robots claim to enable the automation of difficult, unsafe, or tedious tasks throughout the manufacturing process. The bot maker reasons that this allows employees to focus on skills and processes that cannot be automated, as well as continuous improvement in production efficiency and safety.
In the first phase, Figure will identify initial use cases to apply its robots in automotive production. Once completed, its robots will begin staged deployment at BMW’s manufacturing facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
While the company didn’t disclose how many robots BMW will be using, the partnership will start with small numbers and expand if performance targets have been met, according to Brett Adcock, chief executive at Figure.
Beyond the deployment of humanoid robots in an automotive manufacturing environment, BMW and Figure will also explore advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, robot control, manufacturing virtualisation, and robot integration.
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“Single-purpose robotics have saturated the commercial market for decades, but the potential of general purpose robotics is completely untapped, said Adcock.
“The use of general purpose robot solutions has the potential to make productivity more efficient, to support the growing demands of our consumers, and to enable our team to focus on the transformation ahead of us,” added Dr Robert Engelhorn, president and CEO of BMW Manufacturing.
