Robot on a track feeds a 250 ton brake at an 85 person attachment maker

Skid steer attachments; more than 45 attachment types including snow and material buckets · Press brake tending · Trade press

The job

Jenkins Iron and Steel of Long Prairie, Minnesota had automated cutting first, running three fiber lasers with load and unload automation off a material storage tower, and the cut parts then piled up in front of three manually operated press brakes. Operators were loading, maneuvering and unloading 80 to 100 attachment parts per day, some weighing up to 85 pounds and measuring up to 6 by 10 feet, and lead engineer Patrick Jenkins told MetalForming that finding people willing to do that work is difficult. In 2024 the company worked with integrator Acieta to tie a FANUC M-900iB/700 on a linear transfer unit to a Mitsubishi 250 ton hybrid press brake. The robot now picks blanks off a pallet, orients and bends them, and stages finished parts for the welding department.

The shop

85 employees and a 250,000 square foot plant, reported-by-trade-press. The company runs one 10 hour shift per day, reported-by-trade-press. Family owned, in the skid steer attachment business since 2009.

The equipment

FANUC M-900iB/700 six axis robot, 700 kg payload, 2832 mm maximum reach, 0.1 mm repeatability, mounted on a robot transfer unit so it can travel to pick from pallets. Mitsubishi BH25040 hybrid hydraulic and electric press brake, 250 ton capacity, 146 inch bend length. Integrator: Acieta of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Upstream: three high power fiber lasers with load and unload automation linked to a material storage tower. Downstream: 14 robotic welding machines. Gripper design, regrip station and tooling changeover method are not published.

The published numbers

Operators previously loaded, maneuvered and unloaded 80 to 100 attachment parts per day, reported-by-trade-press. Parts handled weigh up to 85 pounds and measure up to 6 by 10 feet, reported-by-trade-press. Robot rated 700 kg payload, 2832 mm reach, 0.1 mm repeatability, and the brake rated 250 tons with a 146 inch bend length, reported-by-trade-press from supplier specifications rather than measured at the shop. Cell installed early 2024. Throughput increase not published. Cycle time not published. Payback not published. Cell cost not published. Headcount change not published. Setup or changeover time not published.

Where a source did not publish a figure, this entry says so rather than guessing.

What we would check before believing it applies to you

This is an honest bottleneck story rather than a sales story: cutting was already automated and outrunning bending, so the robot was sized to the part instead of to a budget, and a 700 kg arm on a track for 85 pound blanks is deliberate overkill that buys reach and stiffness for 6 by 10 foot sheet. Do not read this case as support for a cobot cell; at those blank sizes the physics are different and a 10 to 25 kg collaborative arm cannot do this job. The single most important thing this account does not tell you is tooling and changeover strategy, and with more than 45 attachment types running across one 146 inch brake, somebody is still doing setups; whether that is segmented tooling on a common setup, staged tool stations or automatic tool change is what will decide whether your version of this project pays, so ask any integrator for a changeover time and who performs it. Also note the shop runs one 10 hour shift, which means the classic press brake robot payback argument of a free unattended second shift is not what is happening here. Worth flagging as a positive: this is one of the few genuinely independent editorial accounts in this category, written by a named senior editor with direct company quotes and no vendor content notice.

Sources