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Agility Robotics, creator of the bipedal humanoid robotic Digit, at this time revealed that the corporate is opening RoboFab, a robotic manufacturing facility in Salem, Oregon with the potential to supply greater than 10,000 robots per yr.
Preliminary building of Agility’s 70,000-square-foot (6,500-square-meter) robotic manufacturing facility started final yr, and it’s set to open later this yr. Agility anticipates the manufacturing capability of a whole bunch of Digit robots within the first yr, with the potential to scale to greater than 10,000 robots per yr. At full capability, RoboFab will make use of greater than 500 staff in Salem, along with staff at Agility’s different areas. Digit additionally will work within the new manufacturing facility, in an identical capability to Agility’s buyer websites, shifting, loading, and unloading totes.
Digit is designed from the bottom as much as go the place individuals go and do helpful work, safely, in areas designed for individuals. As a result of so many duties are designed round human workflows, Digit’s human-centric design allows multi-purpose utility. Preliminary purposes embody bulk materials dealing with inside warehouses and distribution facilities. With the opening of the brand new manufacturing facility, clients who’re collaborating within the Agility Companion Program (APP) can count on supply of the primary Digits in 2024, with normal market availability in 2025. For extra data or to use to affix the APP, please go to https://agilityrobotics.com/companions.
“The opening of our manufacturing facility marks a pivotal second within the historical past of robotics: the start of the mass manufacturing of business humanoid robots,” mentioned Damion Shelton, Agility Robotics’ co-founder and CEO. “We constructed Digit to unravel tough issues in at this time’s workforce like accidents, burnout, excessive turnover, and unfillable labor gaps, with the last word imaginative and prescient of enabling people to be extra human. Once you’re constructing new know-how to make society higher, a very powerful milestone is once you’re capable of mass produce that know-how at a scale the place it might probably have an actual, widespread impression.”
Agility Robotics COO Aindrea Campbell is main the scaling of Agility’s manufacturing and company operations to satisfy the massive business demand for Digit, together with the launch of the brand new manufacturing facility.
With greater than twenty years as a senior operations chief at corporations together with Ford and Apple, Aindrea co-led the transition from metal to aluminum on the F150 and quickly scaled capability as head of iPad operations in the course of the pandemic.
“Not solely are we constructing the world’s first manufacturing facility for humanoid robots, however we’re doing so in the USA about 30 miles from our engineering middle which is unbelievable for setting us as much as scale rapidly,” added Campbell. “By establishing RoboFab as a state-of-the-art manufacturing hub in Salem, Oregon, we aren’t solely accelerating the event and deployment of superior robotic techniques but in addition cultivating innovation and creating high-skilled job alternatives. With the potential to supply Digit at scale, we’re poised to vary the way forward for work for the higher.”
You’ll be able to study extra in regards to the State of Humanoid Robotics Growth with Agility Robotics co-founder and Chief Robotic Officer Jonathan Hurst along with Geordie Rose CoFounder & CEO of Sanctuary, and Jeff Cardenas Co-Founder & CEO of Apptronik. These three will kick off the 2023 RoboBusiness occasion with a keynote panel on October 18, 2023. You’ll be able to register for the occasion on the RoboBusiness web site.