Roboworx Calls for Service Infrastructure to Ensure Success of Humanoid Robots

As the race to commercialize humanoid robots accelerates, one robotics service provider argues that the industry’s next major challenge won’t be hardware or artificial intelligence, it will be service. Roboworx, a nationwide robotics support company, says the long-term success of humanoids hinges on building a dependable service infrastructure capable of keeping the machines running once they leave the lab.

That message was front and center at the Humanoids Summit Silicon Valley where Roboworx managing director Jeff Pittelkow appeared on a panel about commercial scaling metrics and delivered a separate presentation on service requirements for humanoid systems.

“The future of humanoids will be defined not only by how well they perform, but by how well they are supported,” Pittelkow says. He points to industry data showing that nearly two-thirds of customers rely on their robot manufacturer for service—an expectation that many emerging humanoid OEMs are not yet equipped to meet. Without a support strategy in place, he warns, companies risk deployment delays, customer frustration, and reduced uptime.

Pittelkow’s call for stronger service systems aligns with a recent McKinsey & Company analysis, which argues that humanoids must meet four criteria before reaching mainstream adoption: safety, sustained uptime, dexterity and mobility, and cost efficiency. Reliable service directly affects at least two of those factors—uptime and operational cost—areas where he believes manufacturers can gain immediate ground while engineering teams continue advancing movement and safety capabilities.

Roboworx used its summit sessions to outline what it sees as the core components of a modern service framework. The company has spent years supporting autonomous mobile robots and collaborative robots across logistics, hospitality, food service, and other sectors, experience Pittelkow says translates directly to humanoids as deployments scale.

A comprehensive service model, he notes, typically includes structured installation processes, preventive maintenance routines, remote diagnostics, rapid-response on-call support for pilots and demonstrations, and ongoing customer training to help facilities integrate robots into daily operations. Roboworx reports that manufacturers using this approach have achieved major improvements: more than a 90 percent reduction in break/fix incidents, a 50 percent drop in operational costs, and up to tenfold growth in customer deployments.

“As deployments become more complex, engineering alone doesn’t determine success,” Pittelkow says. “Service quality becomes the deciding factor in whether these robots can operate reliably at scale.”