Forged Path Automation | We are process engineers, not just robot integrators — Landrum, SC
Forged Path Automation designs, builds, and supports turnkey robotic finishing and cleaning cells from Landrum, South Carolina, for manufacturers in the gas turbine, aerospace, and automotive industries.
The United States will generate more electricity this year than in any year on record. In its September 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook, the U.S. Energy Information Administration put 2026 generation at 4,368 billion kilowatthours, a rise of 2.2 percent, with another 1.7 percent of growth forecast for 2027. Natural gas holds a 40 percent share of that total across 2025, 2026, and 2027.
Most coverage of those numbers asks where the new capacity will come from. A quieter question belongs to the shops that keep the existing fleet turning. A steady 40 percent share of a growing total means more absolute gas-fired output, and output is what puts hours on a machine. That is where the case for gas turbine MRO automation starts.
Hours drive an engine toward its next inspection interval. Hot-section hardware comes out, goes to a repair shop, and has to go back in meeting the specification it met when it was new. Stripping coatings, blending service damage, restoring airfoil contour, preparing surfaces for recoat — that sequence still runs mostly on a hand bench.
Why repair finishing resisted automation longer than machining
A new blade arrives to the same drawing, load after load. A repaired blade arrives carrying the hours it ran, the fuel it burned, and the position it held in the engine. Two airfoils pulled from the same machine can need different amounts of material taken off in different places.
Position matters as much as hours. An airfoil that ran in a hotter stage comes back with a different pattern of oxidation, erosion, and coating loss than one from further down the gas path. Weld and braze repair adds material the drawing does not account for, in places that shift from part to part.
That is the reason finishing stayed manual on the repair side while machining moved to CNC decades ago. A hand operator looks at the part, judges its condition, and adapts the technique. A taught robot path executes the same motion whether the part in front of it matches the model or not, which is why a fixed program breaks down on a part that changed.
The labor arithmetic behind the bench
The people doing that judging are getting scarcer. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures published in August 2026 count 68,500 grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders employed in 2025, with employment projected to fall to 61,100 by 2035 — a decline of 11 percent. Across metal and plastic machine occupations as a group, BLS projects roughly 78,100 openings a year and attributes those openings to replacement need rather than to growth.
Set that against the generation forecast and the shape of the problem gets clear. Overhaul volume follows operating hours, and operating hours are climbing. The bench absorbing that volume is staffed by an occupation that is contracting and refilling itself through retirement.
What does gas turbine MRO automation actually mean?
Gas turbine MRO automation applies robotic cells to repair-side finishing steps — coating removal, blend work, contour restoration, and pre-coat surface preparation — on parts whose as-received condition varies. Because repaired hardware differs part to part, these cells rely on part measurement and adaptive path generation rather than on a single taught program.
Measurement first is the operative idea. The cell inspects the part in front of it, compares what it finds against the model, and builds the path from that comparison. Vision guidance handles hardware that sits differently in the fixture from one load to the next. Force control keeps the media loaded against a surface that sits somewhere other than where the drawing puts it.
None of that removes the need to understand the process. It moves the understanding upstream, out of an operator’s hands and into the engineering that defines how much material may come off, in what sequence, with which media, and what the cell should do when a measurement lands outside the expected window. Shops that skip that definition end up with a robot repeating a hand technique nobody wrote down, which is what a process study is supposed to capture.
The overhaul side of the turbine business has treated its finishing bench as fixed capacity for a long time. The generation data says the work arriving at that bench is growing. The labor data says the bench is not. Repair shops building a case for gas turbine MRO automation are answering a question most of the industry has not started asking.
Forged Path Automation: Turnkey Robotic Finishing for Turbine Manufacturing and MRO
Forged Path Automation was founded by process engineers who kept seeing the same problem: automation providers selling equipment without owning the process. We handle system design, tooling, build, programming, installation, training, and support under one contract.
Our Services Include:
- Turbine Automation Solutions — Robotic finishing, cleaning, and tooling built around blade, vane, and structural turbine geometries
- Robotic Finishing Automation — Sanding, polishing, deburring, and material removal cells built for variable parts
Have a finishing operation that’s hard to staff? Talk to a process engineer about the part, the volume, and the finish you need.
About the Author
Chris Urban is the Founder of Forged Path Automation. His 26+ year manufacturing career spans from an international manufacturing specialist trained in Zurich, Switzerland, to corporate President and business owner. Before launching Forged Path Automation (FPA), Chris scaled an industrial gas turbine business unit from its infancy to $50M in value, directed the zero-downtime relocation of 100+ industrial machines to a 150,000 sq. ft. Center of Excellence, and led US operations for a $2.3B global firm. Today, Chris leverages his deep technical roots and an MBA to engineer turnkey robotic finishing cells that deliver total production stability and clear ROI for high-mix manufacturers. Chris holds an advanced background in both the technical and financial sides of manufacturing, combining studies in Applied Science with a Master of Business Administration.
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn to talk shop or discuss your floor’s ROI.
Follow Forged Path Automation on LinkedIn or visit ForgedPathAutomation.com.
Works Cited
“EIA Expects Record Electricity Generation in 2026 and 2027.” U.S. Energy Information Administration, 9 Sept. 2026, www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/press592.php.
“Metal and Plastic Machine Workers.” Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 27 Aug. 2026, www.bls.gov/ooh/production/metal-and-plastic-machine-workers.htm.