ABB Robots in Ceramics: Glazing, Kilns and Porcelain

From hand-painted plates in 1942 Stoke to Jingdezhen's 1,500-piece-an-hour glazing line, and how ABB IRB 1600 and IRB 2600 robots handle glazed flagons.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/25/20261 min read

In 1942, at the J & G Meakin pottery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, rooms full of women painted designs onto plates by hand. Other workers weighed and blended the clay, pulled teapots out of moulds and stacked plates into kilns one at a time.

Black and white photo of rows of women painting designs on plates at long tables

The decorating shop at the J & G Meakin pottery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, 1942. Photo: Bryson Jack, Ministry of Information / Imperial War Museums via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Jingdezhen in China has made porcelain for more than a thousand years, and much of it is still painted by hand, as in this 2005 workshop photo. Glazing, the coat that turns glassy and seals each piece in the kiln, was long done by dipping or spraying by eye.

Young woman painting a red pattern onto a large porcelain vase with a fine brush

A painter decorating a porcelain vase in a Jingdezhen workshop, 2005. Photo: Asteiner / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

In September, Chinese state media showed an intelligent ceramics workshop in Jingdezhen with automated lines, AGVs and smart kilns. Its fully automated glazing line handles up to 1,500 pieces an hour. The workshop cut its production steps by a third and raised labour efficiency by 40%, and the share of deformed pieces dropped from 6% to 0.8%.

Two workers at a ceramic tile production line next to stacked boxes

Workers on a ceramic tile line at the worker-run Zanon (FaSinPat) factory in Neuquen, Argentina, 2005. Photo: Guglielmo Celata / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

In Stoke-on-Trent, ABB robots already do some of it. At Wade Ceramics, which makes up to 80,000 ceramic flagons a week for spirits brands, the integrator ATG installed four ABB robots in 2016. Two IRB 1600 robots with vision place each flagon at the first kiln so pieces don't fuse together during firing.

White ABB robot arm with a gripper above rows of unglazed ceramic bottles

An ABB robot places flagons before the first firing at Wade Ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent. Photo: ABB

Another cell uses an ABB IRB 2600 to pick up each powder-glazed flagon, wipe its base on a rotating mat and set it on a kiln batt, all within a 16-second cycle. Imprecise wiping used to strip glaze from the base. According to ABB's case study, the reject rate has fallen to 1.5%.

Robot gripper lifting a pink glazed ceramic bottle behind a safety fence

An ABB robot handling glazed flagons at Wade Ceramics. Photo: ABB

A lot of glazing is spraying, much like painting a car, and ABB paint robots already spray car bodies in booths like this one. I expect factories to hand glazing, kiln loading and inspection to robots while painters keep the fine brushwork. For hobby potters, a small cobot that dips and wipes pieces at home does not seem far off.

Several white ABB paint robots with hoses around a car body in a bright paint booth

ABB paint robots spraying a car body in a paint booth. Photo: ABB

Innovation

AI solutions for effortless ABB robot control.

Automation

Robotics

ceojohntran@chatwithrobot.net

+84905311611

qtran1215@gmail.com

Instagram