Robots Are Building Robot Parts. Who Gets Paid?

This robot is helping make parts for other robots: the joints that let the next robot move. Build the parts, put them inside robots, then put robots to work building more parts. It is a wonderfully strange sales pitch.

But watch the people standing beside the machines. This is not a factory that has learned to reproduce itself. It is a company trying to turn a very difficult piece of engineering into a business.

The $450 million question

The company is Schaeffler. On October 13, 2026, it said orders in its humanoid robotics business had grown to approximately EUR400 million, helped by two new customers in the Greater China region in the third quarter. At the European Central Bank reference rate of October 23, 2026, that is about $450 million.

Orders are not revenue already earned, not profit and not the price of a factory. The question is whether the least glamorous part of the robot could become one of the most valuable places to be.

Follow the joint

Forget the face and follow the arm. Software can decide where a hand should go. A physical mechanism still has to move it there, control the force and repeat the job without damaging what it holds. That is an actuator’s job: turning energy into controlled movement, some in a straight line and some by rotating. In a humanoid, actuators turn an instruction into a useful action.

Schaeffler already makes motion technology for demanding industrial applications. Its wager is that the humanoid boom will need that expertise, whichever robot gets the attention. On October 20, it announced a facility in Taicang, China, where six humanoids work across five stations assembling key joint modules, including linear and rotary actuators. Schaeffler describes it as the start of mass production of these components.

A short factory film cannot tell us how often the line stops, how many parts pass inspection or what each finished module costs. Those questions separate a compelling announcement from a proven business.

The people training the machines

The next obstacle is in Erlangen, Germany. At its Humanoid Gym, Schaeffler is working with Hexagon Robotics to prepare a different robot, AEON, for manufacturing work. This is a training environment, not the Taicang production line.

In the footage, a person wearing a headset guides the task while the robot reaches for parts. Teams practice representative production scenarios and validate new capabilities before they reach the factory floor. People are learning how to integrate the robot while the robot is being trained, which is a more useful picture of industrial AI than one impressive move on a stage.

In August, the partners described a planned rollout of at least 1,000 AEON humanoids across Schaeffler’s manufacturing operations in the coming years. A planned deployment is not 1,000 robots already working.

Supplier, customer and the business test

Schaeffler will also supply actuator technology to AEON. It wants to help build the machine, use the machine and learn from what happens when the machine meets a real job. That puts it on both sides, as component supplier and as user, which could give it valuable feedback: where a motion fails, what has to be redesigned and what the next application demands.

Buying robots and selling parts do not prove that the economics work. The public materials do not include the operating data needed to calculate a verified factory payback, and orders still have to become deliveries and profitable business. The same gap between an impressive capability and a business result runs through ABB’s decision to sell its robotics division to SoftBank.

Look past the face

The real test comes after the announcement: consistent quality, useful output and customers ordering again. The next time you watch a humanoid demonstration, look past the face at the joint doing the work. There may be a much bigger business hiding in that ordinary-looking movement.

Who has the stronger position in the robot business: the company building the machine or the company supplying the components?