Concrete precast production is facing a structural transformation. Automation, digital process control, rising quality requirements, material and CO2 efficiency, and the growing shortage of skilled labour are changing the demands on modern manufacturing processes. At the same time, the need for components that can be produced faster, more precisely, and more flexibly is increasing - without losing sight of process reliability and cost-effectiveness. A current example of this development step is the robot-based research facility CREATE at Ruhr University Bochum. CREATE stands for “Concrete Robotics Engineering in Automation Technology” and was officially inaugurated in the KIB-KON experimental hall in July 2026. The facility investigates how adaptive concrete modules can be manufactured in the future in an automated, digitally controlled, and quality-assured way (Fig. 1). At the centre is an end-to-end process chain: material provision, reinforcement, formwork construction, geometric quality control, concreting, controlled rapid curing, mechanical and geometric testing, and the digital assignment of component, process, and quality data. Three industrial robots, mobile component carriers, tool-changing systems, sensor-based testing procedures, and a digital plant model work together in a flexible research environment.