Where things stand
US buyers are ordering more automation per machine and fewer machines. The first half of 2026 was the strongest half-year for US metalworking machinery orders since USMTO began in 1998: $3.44 billion, up 36.0% on H1 2025, on 11,243 machines, with units 2.6% below the second half of 2025 (AMT, August 10 2026). That is about $306,000 per machine, our arithmetic. Aerospace, power generation and semiconductor buyers led; job shops lagged because OEMs absorbed production internally (American Machinist). Robots tell the same story: North America took 36,766 units for $2.25 billion in 2025, up 6.6% in units and 10.1% in dollars, about $61,000 per arm (A3); the world installed 542,000 in 2024 (IFR) and about 621,000 in 2025 (Manufacturing Dive).
Japanese builders are taking the order: JMTBA orders hit JPY 203.3 billion in June 2026, the first month over JPY 200 billion, with North America at JPY 81.4 billion, up 174% (Seisanzai Japan). German builders bottomed but did not recover: Q1 2026 orders +15%, production down 11%, utilisation 73% (VDW).
PLC lead-time cycles
Controllers run a boom-and-destock cycle that the lead-time bulletins never publish. During the chip shortage Rockwell ControlLogix processors ran 20 to 36 weeks and I/O 16 to 26 (Industrial Monitor Direct); Rockwell’s backlog peaked at $5.6 billion in fiscal Q2 2023 (Manufacturing Dive). 2025 was the destocking year: Siemens Digital Industries orders fell 4% and revenue 10% in fiscal Q3 2025 with distributor destocking ending around mid-year (Siemens); Siemens now guides DI revenue +5 to 10% for fiscal 2026 (Siemens, November 2025). Rockwell’s lead-time page still publishes no product-level figure, which is why the PLC cell in the Lead-Time Monitor reads “none published” and Schneider’s drives (4 to 32 weeks, September 2026) stand in for the class.
Prices move once or twice a year and tariffs pass straight through. Rockwell’s fiscal 2026 price target is about 250 basis points, 100 of them tariff pass-through “for EPS neutrality” and 150 inflation; Software and Control margin is 34.8% (Q3 FY2026 transcript). Our forecast: the next PLC lead-time spike comes with the 2027 to 2028 datacenter electrical build, when the same distributors that stock ControlLogix are stripped of switchgear and drives; plan controller buys for 2027 projects in 2026.
Cobot share
Cobots were 7,212 of the 36,766 North American robots ordered in 2025, 19.6% of units and 10.7% of dollars (about $33,000 per arm), and reached 28.6% of units in Q4 2025 (Robot Report). Arm prices are public enough to benchmark: Fanuc CRX-10iA $46,026, CRX-30iA $60,868, M-20iD/35 $70,000 to $75,000 (Vention, October 2025); UR10e $45,000 to $60,000, UR20 $65,000 to $85,000 (Standard Bots, October 2025). The arm is 30 to 50% of the cell; a $40,000 arm becomes a $100,000-plus installation with tooling, vision, safety and integration (EVS), and robotic welding cells run $130,000 to $250,000 pre-engineered and $250,000 to $600,000 custom (Cloos, 2025). ABB is selling its Robotics division to SoftBank for $5.375 billion, closing mid-to-late 2026 (ABB). Our forecast: cobots pass 30% of North American units on a full-year basis in 2027; the integrated-cell price, not the arm price, is what the Equipment Price Benchmark needs to capture.
Software-defined automation
MES is sold three ways: perpetual licence at $35,000 to $100,000 plus 20% annual maintenance, SaaS at $900 to $1,800 a month for a small plant, or per-line tiers (Symestic, 2026). Implementation dominates: $375,000 to $600,000 for a midsize plant, $750,000 to $1.2 million for a large one (ScienceSoft). Inductive Automation publishes Ignition’s server-based pricing, which is why it is the reference point in every SCADA quote. Our forecast: by 2028 the controller vendors sell the PLC as a subscription tied to their software stack, and the buyer’s leverage moves from the hardware quote to the renewal. Siemens’s and Rockwell’s 2026 guidance both lean on software and recurring revenue.
Humanoid pilots graded against buyer economics
What is real: Figure 02 at BMW Spartanburg ran ten months of ten-hour shifts and moved more than 90,000 sheet-metal parts across about 1,250 hours while 30,000-plus X3s were built (BMW, February 27 2026); BMW Leipzig starts a second pilot with Hexagon’s AEON in summer 2026. Note the ratio: 1,250 robot-hours over ten months is well under one full-time equivalent. Agility’s June 2026 SPAC deck models RaaS at $8,500 a month per Digit, about $100,000 a year, against a $30.50 fully burdened human hourly rate (Business Model Analyst); at 2,000 hours a year that is $50 an hour before integration. Interact Analysis forecasts fewer than 100,000 humanoids globally by 2030 (Manufacturing Dive), against 621,000 conventional arms installed in 2025 alone. Our grade: a humanoid is a pilot line item through 2030, not a capex line; a buyer’s break-even needs the RaaS rate under $20 an hour at two shifts, which no public deck yet shows.
Tariffs and country of origin
The rate a machine carries depends on where it was built, not the badge. The Section 232 investigation into robotics and industrial machinery opened September 2 2025 (90 FR 46382) and had produced no proclamation as of September 9 2026. What is in force: Proclamation 11021 (April 6 2026) puts machining centers, robots and forklifts in the 15% all-in Annex III tier through December 31 2027, after which 8457.10 machining centers revert to MFN 4.2% plus 25% and 8428.70 robots to free plus 25% (Tariffs, September 2026; 91 FR 18201). Section 301 forced-labor tariffs from July 24 2026 add 10% or 12.5% by country, with EU and Taiwan capped at 10% all-in and Japan and Korea at 12.5% (91 FR 47318). The Tariff Exposure Calculator applies the stack to an HTS code and origin. Ask for the country of origin on the quote: Mazak Kentucky, Okuma and DMG Mori in Davis, California, and Haas in Oxnard ship US-built machines; a Taiwanese machine carries the Taiwan rate.
Dated milestones
| Date | Milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|
| September 2 2025 | Section 232 robotics and machinery investigation opened; no rate set as of September 9 2026 | Federal Register |
| Summer 2026 | BMW Leipzig humanoid pilot begins (Hexagon AEON) | BMW |
| Mid-to-late 2026 | ABB Robotics sale to SoftBank closes, $5.375B | ABB |
| September 14 to 19 2026 | IMTS, Chicago; USMTO H2 2026 order book set | AMT |
| Late September 2026 | IFR World Robotics 2026 (2025 installations, about 621,000) | IFR |
| Fiscal 2026 | Rockwell price +250 bps, 100 bps tariff pass-through | Rockwell transcript |
| 2027 | Our forecast: cobots pass 30% of North American units; PLC lead-time spike with the datacenter build | this page |
| December 31 2027 | Section 232 Annex III 15% tier sunsets; machining centers to MFN 4.2% plus 25% | Tariffs, September 2026 |
| 2028 | Our forecast: PLC sold as subscription tied to the software stack | this page |
| 2030 | Interact Analysis: fewer than 100,000 humanoids installed globally | Manufacturing Dive |
Machine and cell prices, once cells fill, publish through the Equipment Price Benchmark; the one public list price today is Haas’s, worked through in What a Haas VF-2 Really Costs in 2026.
What would change this roadmap
- A Section 232 proclamation on robotics and machinery. The investigation’s clock ran out around May 30 2026 with no rate; a proclamation would reprice every imported machine and robot on this page in one day, and the 2028 cliff would become a 2026 step.
- A Rockwell or Siemens dated lead-time table. It would replace the “none published” cell in the Monitor and let us date the next controller spike from the vendor’s own data instead of distributor reports.
- A humanoid pilot disclosing hours, uptime and a per-hour cost at or under $20 across two shifts. BMW’s 1,250 hours over ten months is the only audited-scale number in public; a fleet number at that rate moves humanoids from pilot to capex line before 2030.