Toyota Canada Deploys Digit Humanoid on Plant Floor

Digit walks in—the factory just got a humanoid coworker.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada has signed a commercial agreement to deploy Agility Robotics’ Digit after a successful pilot, with plans to extend the robot’s duties across manufacturing, supply chain, and logistics tasks. Tim Hollander, president of TMMC, framed the deal as a concrete step toward augmenting human workers rather than replacing them, noting that the pilot demonstrated how a mobile, general-purpose robot can shoulder repetitive, ergonomically taxing chores while enabling line operators to focus on higher-value work. Production data shows the early results were meaningful enough for the automaker to commit to scale, a decision that could ripple through Canada’s auto ecosystem.

Digit is designed to navigate factory floors, retrieve and transport parts, and assist with routine material-handling duties in spaces that are often too sprawling for static automation cells. Its mobility matters: on the plant floor, the ability to move between stations, reach multiple work zones, and operate without always returning to a fixed dock is a core part of why Toyota Canada pursued the technology in the first place. The deployment aligns with a broader push across the industry to turn “two-shift demos” into enduring deployments that stay productive through full production cycles.

Integration teams report that the biggest challenges in moving from pilot to production lie in syncing Digit with existing conveyors, pallet pathways, and warehouse-management workflows. In other words, the robot needs to fit into a living, multi-system environment rather than a curated test bench. Floor supervisors confirm that Digit’s role is to augment, not supplant: the robot handles repetitive picks and transports in zones where fatigue and injury risk are highest, while human workers retain control over quality judgment, exception handling, and task sequencing when variability appears. Operational metrics show the robot can travel corridors and dock at stations with minimal disruption, but the real test will be scale—how Digit behaves when a plant tries to run a full shift with multiple digits in play.

From a practitioner’s point of view, several realities emerge. First, the ROI question remains highly deployment-specific. ROI documentation reveals that payback hinges on realized cycle-time reductions, throughput gains, and labor-cost offsets, yet Toyota has not published numbers tied to the pilot’s outcomes. Researchers and plant-floor managers will be watching closely as the program moves beyond demonstration to steady-state operation. Second, there are nontrivial floor-space and power considerations. A humanoid co-bot needs a suitable footprint, a reliable power supply, and solid data connectivity to keep up with frequent handoffs to upstream and downstream systems. In practice, this means rethinking micro-layouts around packing, kitting, and staging to keep Digit within reach of the work its human teammates perform. Third, training remains a real input. Maintenance crews and operators must learn to supervise the robot, interpret its status signals, and respond to occasional anomalies—every hour of training saved on the front end is an hour gained during the first months of production. And fourth, there is still a human-to-machine boundary to respect. While Digit can absorb repetitive travel and transport tasks, complex assembly, quality inspection variation, and decision-heavy steps still rely on skilled workers or advanced offline programming.

If the deployment stays on its current path, Toyota Canada could set a recognizable template for supplier and automaker adoption across Canada and beyond. The key will be translating pilot wins into sustained, cross-shift gains: fewer ergonomic injuries, steadier throughput, and a more predictable material flow without sacrificing the human judgment that underpins quality.

Sources

Toyota Canada to deploy Agility Robotics’ humanoid Digit in manufacturing operations