CJ Logistics has put two dual-arm humanoid robots to work on an active packaging line at an Olive Young distribution center in Yangji, Yongin, in South Korea's Gyeonggi Province. The logistics company says it is the first in South Korea's logistics industry to run humanoid robots inside a live, order-fulfilling operation rather than a test or demonstration.
On the line, the robots insert cushioning material inside shipping boxes as real customer orders move through, a task CJ Logistics says exposes the machines to the range of box sizes, shapes, and materials a distribution center handles every day. The deployment follows a field test the company ran at its Gunpo fulfillment center in the second half of 2025 to check whether humanoid robots could hold up in an actual logistics environment before moving to a live production line.
According to CJ Logistics, the robots recognize their surroundings and adjust to unfamiliar products through a system it calls a Robot Foundation Model, which combines live camera and sensor data with training data generated in simulation so the machines can generalize to boxes and materials they have not encountered before. CJ Logistics plans to feed data collected from the live packaging line back into that model to keep raising the robots' accuracy.
CJ Logistics said it intends to expand the robots' role beyond cushioning insertion into picking, sorting, inspection, and packaging as more operational data accumulates, with the longer-term goal of a single humanoid handling multiple logistics tasks in sequence. The program involves outside partners: Robotis supplies the robot hardware, Aidin Robotics contributes robotic hand technology, and RealWorld AI works with CJ Logistics on the foundation model, alongside government-backed research into more capable robotic hands for logistics automation.
CJ Logistics frames the move as a response to a structural limit in warehouse automation. Fixed equipment such as conveyors and stationary robots delivers high throughput on a single task, the company says, but adding a new one typically means reworking the equipment and the physical layout around it. A human shaped robot can instead move between tasks in the same workspace without a redesign, which CJ Logistics sees as the more flexible path as product mixes and order patterns keep changing.
Kim Jung-hee, who heads CJ Logistics' TES Logistics Technology Research Institute, said the deployment goes beyond a demonstration of the technology or a feasibility check, calling it the point where humanoid robots begin taking on an actual role in logistics operations. He said the company plans to combine the data it gathers on site with further AI development so humans and robots can eventually work side by side across its fulfillment operations.
