GXO Logistics and Agility Robotics, both based in the US, announced a multi-year agreement to deploy Digit humanoid robots, marking the first Robots-as-a-Service deployment.
From Agility Robotics 30/06/24. Title by Superinnovators.
GREENWICH, Conn., June 27, 2024 — GXO Logistics, Inc. (NYSE: GXO), the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider, and Agility Robotics, creator of the leading bipedal Mobile Manipulation Robot (MMR) DigitⓇ, announced today that they have signed a multi-year agreement to begin deploying Digit in GXO’s logistics operations.
This agreement, which follows a proof-of-concept pilot in late 2023, is both the industry’s first formal commercial deployment of humanoid robots and first Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) deployment of humanoid robots.
“We’re building on the success of last year’s groundbreaking pilot with Agility by deploying fully operational Digit humanoids into a live warehouse environment,” said Adrian Stoch, Chief Automation Officer, GXO.
“Our R&D approach is to partner with developers all over the world to help them build and validate practical use cases that improve the working environment for our employees while optimizing operations for our customers.”
“Agility shares this philosophy, and Digit is the perfect addition to work alongside our people in our fulfilment centre.”
“We’re delighted to progress our partnership through this critical milestone,” said Adrian Stoch, Chief Automation Officer, GXO.
As part of the RaaS agreement, GXO is deploying Digit robots and Agility ArcTM, Agility’s cloud automation platform for deploying and managing Digit fleets.
Digit is a multi-purpose, human-centric robot made for logistics work, and designed to work safely in human spaces and help with a variety of repetitive tasks.
Agility Arc is designed to simplify the deployment lifecycle, from facility mapping and workflow definition to operational management and troubleshooting.
In the SPANX facility, Agility’s solutions integrate with existing automation, including Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs).
Expanding on last year’s pilot, Digit robots are assisting with repetitive tasks such as moving totes from cobots and placing them onto conveyors, all orchestrated through Agility Arc.
Under the RaaS agreement, the companies will continue to explore additional use cases and scale Digit usage to meet demand throughout the deployment.
“There will be many firsts in the humanoid robot market in the years to come, but I’m extremely proud of the fact that Agility is the first with actual humanoid robots deployed at a customer site, generating revenue, and solving real-world business problems,” said Peggy Johnson, CEO, Agility Robotics.
“Agility has always been focused on the only metric that matters – delivering value to our customers by putting Digit to work – and this milestone deployment raises the bar for the entire industry.”
Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine (SDCE) recently recognized GXO as the overall winner of the 2024 Top Supply Chain Projects awards for its groundbreaking pilot with Digit.
More info
https://agilityrobotics.com/products/digit
