Agility Robotics and Ricoh partner to support expanding humanoid robot market

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Sep 09, 2024, 08:30 ET

First-of-its-kind partnership taps global technical resources for seamless deployment, service

EXTON, Pa. and CORVALLIS, Ore., Sept. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Agility Robotics, creator of the leading bipedal Mobile Manipulation Robot (MMR) Digit®, and Ricoh USA, Inc., one of the largest global service delivery organizations, today announced it will partner to expand Agility's customer support capabilities throughout North America. This agreement – the first of its kind for a humanoid robot – extends Agility's support system through Ricoh's world-class Service Advantage program and provides additional resources for its end users.

Agility Robotics' humanoid robot, Digit.

"As the global warehouse automation market continues to experience double-digit growth, the need to keep the related technology, automation and robotics up and running, as well as adapt to new workflows, becomes even more critical," said Jim Kirby, Vice President, Service Advantage, Ricoh North America. "We are excited to collaborate with Agility to support their customers' automated warehouse solutions and ensure the humanoid robots being deployed are coupled with a world-class service promise."

For more than eighty years, Ricoh has been at the forefront of innovation, helping businesses and individuals work smarter. Led by Ricoh's global network of highly skilled and certified service employees, Ricoh Service Advantage is a lifecycle management solution that enables diverse companies of all sizes to expand their footprint and services, enter new regions and markets, implement best practices, and reduce costs.

Ricoh will support Digit robots and Agility Arc™, 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.

"Our goal is for every end user deployment to be successful, with respect to uptime, safety, and overall success," said Rich Bohne, Chief Commercial Officer at Agility Robotics. "This partnership with Ricoh gives us eyes, ears, and hands all over the world and adds an additional layer of expert support should a customer need our assistance."

Today's announcement follows a series of partnership and customer deployment news as Agility builds out a support system to put Digit to work in the most successful way possible. Agility recently announced a multi-year agreement with GXO Logistics, Inc. to deploy Digit in its logistics operations. This is the industry's first formal commercial deployment of humanoid robots and first Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) deployment of humanoid robots. Agility also recently partnered with system integrator Zion Solutions Group and warehouse management company Manhattan Associates.

About Agility Robotics

Headquartered in Corvallis, Oregon, with offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Palo Alto, California, Agility Robotics' mission is to build robot partners that augment the human workforce, ultimately enabling humans to be more human. Agility's groundbreaking bipedal Mobile Manipulation Robot (MMR) Digit is the first multi-purpose, human-centric robot that is made for work™.

| About Ricoh |

Ricoh is a leading provider of integrated digital services and print and imaging solutions designed to support digital transformation of workplaces, workspaces and optimize business performance.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh's global operation reaches customers in approximately 200 countries and regions, supported by cultivated knowledge, technologies, and organizational capabilities nurtured over its 85-year history. In the financial year ended March 2024, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 2,348 billion yen (approx. 15.5 billion USD).

It is Ricoh's mission and vision to empower individuals to find Fulfillment through Work by understanding and transforming how people work so we can unleash their potential and creativity to realize a sustainable future.

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SOURCE Ricoh USA, Inc.