Press‑Tending Robots – Boosting Productivity and Enhancing Workplace Safety

Industrial robots have been around for more than forty years, and during that time, they have been assisting humans in several different applications like welding, assembly and painting, along with dozens of others. While these robots improve productivity for the manufacturers, they also improve safety for the workers, especially in the case of press tending robots.

A press tending robot is a robot that handles the materials that go into and come out of pressing machines. A robot will use an end effector of some sort to insert plastic or metal work pieces into a press, and then they will remove the piece after the press is done, tending to the piece and placing it the next place it needs to go. When manufacturers have several different presses close together they will sometimes place the robotic press tender near all of them so that it can move the work piece from place to place, improving the speed of the pressing part of production.

However, as mentioned above, press tending robots are not only great because of their ability to increase production speeds. They are also important because they keep humans away from the presses. For over 100 years, factories were run manually, and this meant that human workers would have to tend to the presses, feeding work pieces in and out of them all day long, which can be tedious and dull. All it took was one slip up, and a human worker could lose a finger, hand or even arm to a press. With a press tending robotic system, this is no longer an issue, keeping workers safe, and staving off production slowdowns or interruptions due to injuries.

Are you interested in learning more about press tending robots? Then you should contact RobotWorx, an integrator for Fanuc, ABB, KUKA, Universal Robots, and Motoman robotics companies. Our staff will work with you to help you design, build and customize the right press tending robot for your facility and budget.