Automation tools getting easier

Most factory robots still need a specialist to write the steps like a recipe: move here, grip this, wait 2 seconds, place there. Siemens is now pitching a different idea where the worker gives the goal and the system figures out more of the sequence on its own. (siemens.com) That shift starts with an old bottleneck: classical industrial automation depends on programmable logic controllers, fixed sequences, and detailed commissioning work. Siemens says those systems made factories reliable for decades, but they also lock a lot of know-how inside engineering teams. (siemens.com) Siemens calls the next step “software-defined” automation, which means more of the factory is described in software instead of hard-wired logic. In its January 2026 post, the company said this makes it possible for industrial systems to act on objectives, operating context, and continuous learning instead of only on prewritten instructions. (siemens.com) A second route is even simpler: skip the code and show the robot the task with your hands. RoboTwin, a startup founded in Prague in 2021, builds handheld devices and no-code software that capture a worker’s movements and turn them into instructions for industrial robots. (projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu) The European Union has been backing that approach with real money. A European Commission project page says RoboTwin’s Horizon Europe grant agreement was signed on June 6, 2023, with the project running from July 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024 to bring its robot-teaching tool to market. (cordis.europa.eu) The company’s pitch is aimed at shops that cannot afford a full robotics programming team. The European Union’s Horizon magazine said workers perform the job once, RoboTwin converts that demonstration into a robot program, and smaller manufacturers get a path into automation without writing complex code. (projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu) The same pattern is showing up inside car manufacturing groups that want to own more of the stack. In November 2024, Vingroup announced VinRobotics with charter capital of 1 trillion Vietnamese dong, and said the new company would work on robotics research, development, and applications for industry, services, and daily life. (vinfast.vn) Vingroup is VinFast’s parent, so that robotics push sits next to its electric vehicle factories rather than outside them. The company said Vingroup would hold 51% of VinRobotics, founder Phạm Nhật Vượng would hold 39%, and two other shareholders would hold 5% each. (vinfast.vn) This is what “lower-barrier automation” looks like in practice: fewer screens full of robot code, more systems that learn from targets or demonstrations. Siemens is framing it as objective-based industrial software, RoboTwin is turning worker motions into programs, and Vingroup is building in-house robotics capacity around manufacturing. (siemens.com) (projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu) (vinfast.vn) The common bet is that the next robot user will look less like a software engineer and more like a line worker, process expert, or factory supervisor. If that bet works, the hard part of automation moves from writing every instruction by hand to capturing what a skilled human already knows how to do. (cordis.europa.eu) (siemens.com)