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.
Federal support for automation adoption keeps widening. In July 2026 the National Institute of Standards and Technology opened a funding competition worth up to $46.5 million for 14 new Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers, aimed at helping small and medium-sized manufacturers take up robotics, artificial intelligence, and automation. NIST puts those manufacturers at 98 percent of the U.S. manufacturing base.
Funding and advisors address the adoption gap. They do not address the failure that sends a manufacturer into a second automation project more skeptical than the first: a cell specified before anyone characterized the process it was meant to replace. A robotic cell process study is the step that gets skipped.
What is a robotic cell process study?
A robotic cell process study characterizes an existing manufacturing process before any equipment is specified. It documents how the part varies, how the current manual method is actually performed, what the acceptance criterion is, and what the cell must sense and control. The study defines the requirement the cell is later designed and validated against.
The part family, and how it moves
Variation is the first question. Turbine work is full of it — casting tolerance on new blades and vanes, service condition on repaired hardware, weld and braze repair leaving material in places the drawing does not show. A study measures a representative spread of parts rather than one good one, because the cell has to handle the spread and not the sample.
Fixturing follows from that. Where the datums sit, how repeatably the part seats, how much the fixture is allowed to flex under process load — these settle whether a taught path can work at all, or whether the cell has to find the part before it touches it.
The manual method, as it is actually performed
Hand finishing is rarely documented at the level a robot needs. A study watches the operation and asks the operator what they are reading from the surface, then converts that judgement into something specifiable: media and grit sequence, contact force, dwell, approach angle, and the visual or tactile cue that says the feature is done.
Much of that sits only in the operator’s hands. Capturing it is the point.
Acceptance, exposure, and the handoff
Two items get skipped most often.
The first is the acceptance criterion. How is the finished feature judged, by whom, with what instrument, and what happens to a part that falls outside the band? A cell cannot be validated against a standard nobody has written.
The second is exposure and containment. Manual finishing and abrasive blasting can generate respirable crystalline silica, which OSHA has regulated under 29 CFR 1910.1053 since the final rule of March 2016, amended May 2019, with a permissible exposure limit of 50 micrograms per cubic meter as an eight-hour time-weighted average, and an action level of 25. The standard calls for engineering and work practice controls first, a written exposure control plan, and medical surveillance for exposed employees. A cell changes where the dust goes. The study is where that gets designed rather than discovered.
What the study hands over
A process study is not a report that gets filed. It produces the inputs the design phase needs: a characterized part family with its measured spread, a written description of the manual method, a defined acceptance criterion and who owns it, a datum and fixturing strategy, a media and consumable plan, an exposure and containment approach, and a list of the conditions under which the cell should stop and ask for a human.
That last item separates a cell that runs production from one that runs demonstrations. Every process has parts that fall outside the envelope. A study decides in advance what happens to them, rather than leaving the question to whoever is standing at the cell the first time one appears.
A robotic cell process study also settles what the cell has to sense. A part family that varies part to part points toward measurement-driven pathing. A repair-side operation carries the further complication that as-received condition differs on each part through the door.
Adoption programs can help fund a cell. They cannot tell a shop what its own process requires. That answer comes off the floor, before the equipment conversation starts, and skipping it is the most common reason a robot ends up parked beside the bench it was bought to replace.
Forged Path Automation: Process Engineering Before Equipment, from Landrum, SC
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:
- Custom Robotic Tooling and Fixture Design — Tooling and fixtures engineered around the part geometry rather than around the catalogue
- Process Engineering and System Design — Studying the process first, then designing the cell around it
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
“NIST Announces Funding Opportunity for 14 MEP Centers to Advance Small and Medium-Sized U.S. Manufacturers.” National Institute of Standards and Technology, 22 July 2026, www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/07/nist-announces-funding-opportunity-14-mep-centers-advance-small-and-0.
“1910.1053 — Respirable Crystalline Silica.” Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.1053.
This article is general industry information and is not a substitute for OSHA guidance, robot safety standards, or a qualified engineer’s assessment of your specific application.