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.
Motor vehicle manufacturing buys more robots than any other American manufacturing industry. In Capital Expenditures for Robotic Equipment: 2022, released by the Census Bureau in April 2024, motor vehicle, body, trailer, and parts manufacturing accounted for $1,990 million of robotic equipment spending — the largest single industry figure in the report. Manufacturing as a whole spent $7,289 million.
The prior year ran higher at $8,581 million, though the Census Bureau notes that change is not statistically significant.
The capital is committed, in other words. What decides whether a given cell earns its place is narrower and less discussed: does it serve one part family, or several?
That is the flexible vs dedicated automation question, and it usually gets answered by default rather than on purpose.
Dedicated automation, and where it genuinely wins
A dedicated cell is built around one part family. Fixturing is purpose-made. Tooling is selected for one material and one range of geometry. The program does one job.
Where the part is stable and the volume is known, this is the better engineering answer. The cell stays simple, a maintenance team can own it, and nothing inside it exists to handle a case that will not occur. Reaching for flexibility on a part that will not change buys complexity for no return.
The exposure sits in one place. If the part changes or the program moves, the fixture and the tooling were built for something that no longer exists.
Flexible automation, and what it actually costs
A flexible cell carries several part families. Fixtures are modular or adjustable. Programs are stored and recalled. Tooling may change between runs.
What it buys is the ability to absorb a product change without rebuilding. What it costs shows up in places that rarely make the specification: more fixtures to store and keep accurate, more programs to version and track, and a changeover procedure somebody has to perform correctly on a busy shift.
Flexibility that nobody can execute on a Tuesday afternoon is flexibility on paper.
Flexible vs dedicated automation: how do you choose?
Dedicated automation suits a stable part family with known volume, where purpose-built fixturing keeps the cell simple to run and support. Flexible automation suits shops carrying several part families, uncertain volume, or frequent product change, where the ability to take on new work outweighs the added complexity in fixturing, programs, and changeover.
Changeover is where the two architectures separate
The NIST Robotic Systems for Smart Manufacturing Program, last updated in March 2025, names lengthy changeover times for new tasks and products, along with limited reusability, among the barriers holding back wider use of robotics in manufacturing. The same page estimates that only 10 percent of potential users in manufacturing have adopted robotic systems, and cites a workshop report describing the lengthy and expensive process of installing them.
NIST also singles out calibration of arms, sensors, and tooling as a technical barrier for small and medium manufacturers.
Read against the flexible vs dedicated automation choice, that lands in a specific place. A dedicated cell has no changeover to speak of. A flexible cell has one, and how long it actually takes is a property of the fixturing design rather than of the robot. A cell that needs an hour of shimming and re-teaching between part families will quietly become a dedicated cell, because operators will route work to avoid the changeover.
What settles it on a real floor
Three questions do most of the work. How confident is the volume forecast for this part family? How many other families could plausibly run through the same cell in five years? Who performs the changeover, and have they been trained on it?
Those answers come off the floor, not out of a catalogue. They also come before equipment selection, since the architecture decides what the fixturing and tooling have to do. The part itself carries weight here too, because a casting that arrives different every load widens what either architecture has to absorb, and substrate changes what the abrasive does once the cell is running.
Neither side of flexible vs dedicated automation is the ambitious answer. The ambitious choice is the one that matches the operation in front of you.
Forged Path Automation: Robotic Cells Designed Around the Process, 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:
- Process Engineering and System Design — Studying the process and defining the requirement before any equipment is specified
- Custom Robotic Tooling and Fixture Design — Tooling and fixtures engineered around your part geometry
Have a finishing operation that’s hard to staff? Talk to a process engineer about the part, the volume, and the finish you need.
Works Cited
“Capital Expenditures for Robotic Equipment: 2022.” U.S. Census Bureau, 10 Apr. 2024, www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/econ/2022-robotic-equipment.html.
“Robotic Systems for Smart Manufacturing Program.” National Institute of Standards and Technology, updated 26 Mar. 2025, www.nist.gov/programs-projects/robotic-systems-smart-manufacturing-program.
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.
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.