Pilot / Small-Batch Delivery

Delivering a few to a few dozen units to select customers first, to validate before scaling up.

Pilot and small-batch delivery is the intermediate stage between prototype and scaled deployment: a manufacturer places a handful to a few dozen robots into a customer's factory, warehouse, or store, running them under real working conditions for a period to check success rate, cycle time, failure rate, and return on investment. It comes after proof of concept (PoC) and before scaled deployment. Most of what humanoid-robot companies publicly announce as “delivered” or “entered a factory” is at this stage, and the quantity and real usage time are often undisclosed, so delivery figures in the news should be read carefully to see whether they describe a pilot or a genuine batch order.

ExampleA humanoid-robot company announcing it has delivered its first few units to an automaker's factory for material-handling training is a pilot delivery; only once the customer validates it does a batch order typically follow.

Related

Proof of Concept · Scaled Deployment · Factory Pilot Deployment · Framework Order / Letter-of-Intent Order · Mass Production · Real-world Deployment

Sources

Pilot experiment - Wikipedia