AGCO Digit pilot targets parts handling at Kansas factory

AGCO has signed an agreement to pilot Agility Robotics’ Digit humanoid at its Hesston, Kansas, manufacturing plant, with work expected to begin in 2027. According to Forbes, the robot’s initial assignments will be sorting and stacking parts and placing totes into storage.

The AGCO Digit pilot will put the robot in an established agricultural equipment factory employing more than 1,100 people across 13 production lines. The facility makes balers, mower conditioners and self propelled windrowers. The planned work is material handling in support of manufacturing, rather than assembling complete machines.

Agility chief business officer Daniel Diez told Forbes that the aim is to automate repetitive, physically demanding tasks without major changes to the factory’s existing infrastructure. Reducing employee strain and improving operational efficiency are company goals for the project, not reported outcomes of the pilot.

Parts handling in a factory built for people

Hesston offers a practical test of the commercial argument for humanoids: whether a mobile robot can perform useful work in spaces and workflows designed around people. For this deployment, sorting parts and storing totes provide a more specific test than broad claims about general purpose manufacturing capability.

Michigan Farm News, an official Michigan Farm Bureau publication, reports that Digit can carry up to 50 pounds, reach just over 7 feet and work up to 20 hours a day with time allowed for charging. Those platform specifications describe the robot’s advertised capacity, rather than a duty cycle demonstrated at AGCO.

AGCO manufacturing technology director Thomas Enghof described the intended role as “absorbing repetitive, strenuous or hazardous tasks,” according to the statement carried by both publications. He also emphasized strict safety governance. Agility says Digit is engineered to work close to people, making safe operation alongside employees a central requirement for the planned factory work.

Agility also says its Arc cloud platform can deploy and manage Digit fleets without extensive infrastructure changes, Forbes reports. That proposition is especially relevant at an existing facility: the operational benefit depends partly on how much integration the assigned tasks require, not simply on the robot’s ability to walk through the plant.

AGCO joins Agility customers including Toyota, GXO and Schaeffler. Forbes reports that Digit previously took on paid tote handling work for GXO and that Agility signed a robots as a service agreement with Toyota Canada earlier in 2026. The Hesston pilot is expected to start in 2027 with parts and tote handling as its first assignments.

Sources: Forbes, An official publication of Michigan Farm Bureau