A guy named Ken Fox, who posts frequently at X, designs automation systems–electrical components, pneumatics, and software–especially for the food processing industry. Here’s his ice cream cone filler at work: video.
There are a lot more videos at his X feed.
When people talk about manufacturing, they usually seem to think about metalworking in one form or another–but there are other important types of manufacturing, including the process industries…refining, fertilizer manufacturing, plastics processing…pharmaceuticals manufacturing…and food processing.
Also, I notice that a lot of people judge the level of automation in a particular company or across an entire national economy by counting robots. I don’t think this is a very good metric. How many humanoid robots would it take to equal the performance of Ken’s ice cream cone filler, or any of the other automation systems in his video collection? You could in principle make a CNC machine tool by having a humanoid robot turn the wheels on a manual machine tool, but it makes a lot more sense to just mount the servos directly on the machine. Similarly, elevators could in principle have been automated by having a humanoid robot handle the controls, but it was simpler to just build the logic into the system.
There will be a big role for humanoid robots, certainly, but I suspect that in many cases they will be a temporary bridge to a more comprehensive system.
Anyhow, enjoy the videos!