SK AX will overhaul manufacturing shop-floor operations around robots and move to build an autonomous fab in which the entire plant judges and moves on its own. The company plans to use this to solve labor shortages and falling productivity facing Korea's manufacturing sector.
SK AX said on the 9th that it will begin in earnest a "manufacturing RX (robot transformation) full-stack service" that helps manufacturing corporations achieve operational innovation through robot adoption.
An SK AX official said, "By combining Digital Twin and physical AI technologies, among others, we help proactively verify potential risks when introducing robots and push step by step toward on-site autonomous control and integrated operation of the entire plant," adding, "By enabling real-time consolidation among robots, the manufacturing execution system (MES), and equipment data, it becomes possible to realize an autonomous manufacturing environment in which the entire plant moves organically."
SK AX's manufacturing RX full-stack service supports every stage in a one-stop manner, from virtual verification before bringing in robots to autonomous on-site control and integrated operation of the entire plant. In the Digital Twin stage, it implements in a virtual space real-time quality changes according to actual plant drawings, equipment layout, worker movement lines, material flow, process conditions, and more.
Based on this, it repeatedly verifies thousands of driving and work scenarios before deploying robots on-site. It simulates quality control variables, bottlenecks, collision possibilities, and charging scheduling. Through this, it can optimize robot control in real time and establish charging plans according to bypass routes and battery consumption rates when contingencies arise.
Once robots that have completed virtual verification are deployed on-site, physical AI based on the VLA model—seeing (Vision), understanding (Language), and acting (Action)—is applied. Whereas conventional robots performed only simple repetitive motions according to fixed rules, VLA-based robots actively adjust how they work by recognizing and judging unexpected obstacles or changes in the work environment on their own. The company said this can maximize precision and continuity of tasks even in unstructured manufacturing settings.
The final stage is integrated operation, the core of future factories. In future factories, heterogeneous robots of various makes and operating systems—such as AMRs (autonomous mobile robots), collaborative robots, and humanoids—must move organically. Through its heterogeneous robot integrated control system, SK AX ties robots from various manufacturers into a single operating framework and links them with related systems such as the manufacturing execution system (MES) to control and integrate the entire process.
SK AX is already verifying systems and pilot models related to Digital Twin and integrated robot control along with accumulating field data in the semiconductor industry, and is expanding these efforts to shipbuilding projects. Based on proven pilot models, it plans to keep extending the service to various industries to accelerate customers' transition to autonomous factories.
Kim Kwang-su, head of manufacturing services at SK AX, said, "The robot transformation of manufacturing is no longer a simple hardware purchase; the key is the operational capability to ensure robots run reliably on the production floor and achieve consolidation with the entire plant," adding, "Leveraging our capabilities in Digital Twin, physical AI, and heterogeneous robot integrated control, SK AX will be the AX partner that evolves customers' factories into autonomous plants that never stop."