  Launched by Elon Musk and its Optimus, we are witnessing a new race in which
many companies have already engaged. The objective it to put at work a new
generation of humanoid robots in demanding industrial environments within 2 or
3 years. Is this objective realistic ? The aim of this document and its main
contributions is to provide some hints by covering the following topics: First
an analysis of 12 companies based on eight criteria that will help us to
distinguish companies based on their maturity and approach to the market;
second as these humanoids are very complex systems we will provide an overview
of the technological challenges to be addressed; third when humanoids are
deployed at scale, Operation and Maintenance become critical and the we will
explore what is new with these complex machines; Finally Pilots are the last
step to test the feasibility of a new system before mass deployment. This is an
important step to test the maturity of a product and the strategy of the
humanoid supplier to address a market and two pragmatic approaches will be
discussed.
