Conveyor belts and stacker cranes, the transport machines that symbolized logistics centers and factories, are disappearing. Robots and Physical AI technology will shorten construction timelines and enable flexible redeployment of processes, opening an era of 100% fully autonomous operations.
Myeong Chang-guk, an executive director at LG CNS, said this in a lecture on July 9 at the "2026 SME AX Leaders Forum," hosted by ChosunBiz at the Westin Josun Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, under the theme "Change is in progress—scalable Physical AI approaches."
Executive Director Myeong oversees logistics center and factory automation and robotics at LG CNS LG CNS(064400). He assessed that "the current automation level in Korea's logistics and manufacturing sites is about 30%." That is because challenging areas such as loading and unloading or complex picking (the process of grabbing and placing items) still require human hands.
The key to overcoming these limits and driving automation up to 100% is "mobile automation" and Physical AI. Physical AI refers to technology that equips devices with a physical form with AI. These technological advances are already transforming industrial sites.
Myeong introduced "mobile automation," which can expand, shrink, and redeploy by using technology based on mobile AMRs (autonomous mobile robots) that can replace traditional transport machinery. Representative solutions include the "4-way shuttle," which automatically stores and retrieves cargo over 1 ton, and the "sorting robot," which performs classification.
After LG CNS applied a conveyor-free Autonomous Driving–based solution to a U.S. secondary battery plant, it cut the construction period, which took one year, to about seven months, a reduction of roughly 30%. Myeong said, "We are seeing savings not only in the construction period but also in expense (cost) and maintenance."
LG CNS is also carrying out logistics center automation projects near Chicago and Texas in the United States to store and pick frozen dough. More recently, Myeong explained, it opened a conveyor-free factory at Hyundai HD Electric's Cheongju plant that handles materials and supplies, semi-finished goods, and finished goods entirely on a robot base (handling).
Myeong pointed to the "VLA (Vision-Language-Action) model," which serves as the robot's brain, as a key element for fully autonomous operations. It is a concept that adds action to vision- and language-model foundations, and Google's Gemini RT and Nvidia's GR00T fall into this category.
He explained, "Unlike existing text-based models, 'action data' performed by robots is very difficult and expensive to collect, so augmenting and refining data through simulated environments is important."
He also noted that the "hand effector" technology, which corresponds to a robot's hand, currently remains at a maximum of about 5 kilograms, and that advances in this area must accompany progress for a general-purpose robot form factor to be completed.
LG CNS has built three programs and platforms to support the adoption of AI and robots in industrial sites.
One is the RX Innovation Lab. It is a kind of robot-adoption consulting program that analyzes simple tasks and high-intensity or hazardous tasks, weighs priority and feasibility, and supports moving to the PoC (proof-of-concept) stage.
Physical Works "Pose" is a platform that collects and trains data and verifies robot foundation models (RFMs) and VLA models up to pre-deployment. It is currently running about 30 PoCs, mainly within LG Group affiliates, in processes handling hazardous materials and in e-commerce logistics centers.
Physical Works "Baton" is a platform that breaks down orders issued to the field into workflows, assigns and monitors them to robots by task, and orchestrates heterogeneous robots.
Myeong projected, "In the past, low-cost labor and proximity (market access) were the main location factors for factories and logistics centers, but going forward, how easily one can access a technology ecosystem centered on robots and Physical AI will be the first consideration." He added, "LG CNS seeks to play a role in properly designing and executing this direction of change."
The "SME AX Leaders Forum" is a specialized forum in the small and venture sector hosted by ChosunBiz, the economics-focused outlet of the Chosun Media Group, with the goal of spreading AI transformation (AX) among small and midsize enterprises. It is sponsored by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the Seoul Business Agency (SBA), and the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise (KFME).