Cookware Manufacturing: Cast Iron to ABB Robots

How cookware manufacturing moved from sand cast iron and hand polishing to deep drawing and non-stick lines, and where ABB robots could polish and coat pans.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

10/10/20265 min read

Before a frying pan reaches a shop it has been cast or pressed, ground, polished and usually coated. Cookware manufacturing has used machines for a century, yet the dirtiest jobs, such as fettling castings and polishing steel, stayed manual long after the forming was mechanised. This post looks at how cast iron and copper pans were made by hand, how deep drawing and non-stick coating lines changed the trade, what cookware plants are doing in 2026, and where ABB robots with force control, paint robots and palletizers could take over some of that work.

Enamelled cast iron pots and a grill pan with wooden handle stacked on a wire shelf
Enamelled cast iron pots and a grill pan with wooden handle stacked on a wire shelf

Le Creuset enamelled cast iron cookware on a kitchen shelf. Photo: Fowler&fowler / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

How pots and pans were cast, hammered and drawn

Cast iron cookware came out of sand foundries. Workers packed sand around a pattern, poured molten iron, broke the mould and ground off the rough edges by hand. American makers such as Griswold of Erie, Pennsylvania, sold skillets stamped with the Erie name around 1905. In France, Le Creuset was founded in 1925 in Fresnoy-le-Grand by Armand De Saegher, a Belgian casting specialist, and Octave Aubecq, who specialised in enamelling. Its cast iron is still sand cast in Fresnoy-le-Grand, finished by hand and sprayed with at least two coats of enamel.

The underside of an old brown cast iron skillet marked Erie and number 8, lying on pebbles
The underside of an old brown cast iron skillet marked Erie and number 8, lying on pebbles

A Griswold Erie cast iron skillet made around 1905. Photo: E.W. Modemac / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Copper and sheet metal pans had their own trades. Villedieu-les-Poêles in Normandy is named after the pans its coppersmiths hammered for centuries, and its workshops still turn and finish copper by hand. In the 20th century, aluminium and stainless steel pans were made by deep drawing, in which a press pulls a flat disc into a cup over one or more strokes, or by spinning a disc over a form on a lathe. After the Second World War, a Berlin factory turned salvaged German steel helmets into saucepans, and photos from the time show workers polishing each one by hand.

A man in a blue work coat at a lathe in a cluttered copper workshop with shiny parts
A man in a blue work coat at a lathe in a cluttered copper workshop with shiny parts

A craftsman turning copper parts at the Atelier du Cuivre in Villedieu-les-Poeles, Normandy. Photo: Ji-Elle / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Non-stick coatings changed the product again. Roy Plunkett discovered PTFE at DuPont in 1938, and in 1956 Marc Grégoire founded Tefal in France to sell PTFE-coated aluminium pans; the name joins Teflon and aluminium. Coating plants put blasting or etching, spray lines and curing ovens after the forming presses. Much of the handling in between stayed manual. People loaded discs into presses, held pans against polishing wheels, hung bodies on coating conveyors and packed the finished sets.

Black and white photo of a worker in a cap polishing a metal pot at a bench
Black and white photo of a worker in a cap polishing a metal pot at a bench

A worker polishes a saucepan made from a salvaged steel helmet in a Berlin factory after the Second World War. Photo: No 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit / Imperial War Museums via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

What cookware plants are automating now

Some makers are moving production closer to their customers. On September 21, 2026, MexicoNow reported that Tramontina has begun local production of ten lines of frying pans at its plant in Lerma, State of Mexico. The plant opened in March 2026, can make 100,000 aluminium cookware pieces a month, and belongs to an investment programme of more than US$29 million for 2025 to 2027. Tramontina says making pans in Mexico has shortened import lead times and improved the supply of products and spare parts. An earlier MexicoNow report said Lerma is the company's first production plant outside Brazil.

A worker standing beside the large steel bed of a deep drawing press in a factory
A worker standing beside the large steel bed of a deep drawing press in a factory

The blank holder of a large Schuler deep drawing press at Witte van Moort in Vriezenveen. Photo: Reinold Tomberg / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

The chemistry behind non-stick pans is back in the news. On September 23, ITV News reported that blood tests commissioned by lawyers found raised PFOA levels in residents living near the Hillhouse chemical site in Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire. PFOA, once used in making PTFE, was used at the site until 2012. ICI ran the plant until 1992, and AGC Chemicals operates it today. Most non-stick pans are now sold as PFOA free, but stories like this keep people asking how coatings are made and applied. Polishing has been changing as well: in 2018 Heinz Berger Maschinenfabrik of Wuppertal won the Hannover Messe Robotics Award for a chain of robot cells that polish pots and pans.

Close view of dark concentric grooves on the coated cooking surface of a frying pan
Close view of dark concentric grooves on the coated cooking surface of a frying pan

The spiral grooved non-stick surface of a Circulon anodised aluminium frying pan. Photo: Colin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

We found no published ABB cookware project, so what follows is a possibility, though ABB already sells tools for these jobs. RobotWare Machining FC adds force control, so a robot can hold a pan against a belt or wheel with constant pressure even when castings vary. An ABB customer story from Taiwan describes an IRB 2600 grinding and polishing with force control, and at Ancofer an IRB 6700 grinds steel parts in Teqram's EasyGrinder cell. IRB 5500 paint robots could spray coatings, and IRB 460 palletizers could stack boxed sets. Polishing paths are usually planned in RobotStudio before a cell is built.

Overhead view of a white robot arm grinding a round steel part with sparks beside pallets
Overhead view of a white robot arm grinding a round steel part with sparks beside pallets

An ABB robot in Teqram's EasyGrinder cell at Ancofer picks steel parts from pallets and grinds them. Photo: ABB

Where cookware manufacturing is heading

In factories, the next step is to link presses, polishing, coating and packing into continuous lines. Die-cast aluminium pans need deburring after casting, a job for robots built to survive foundry conditions, and ABB makes protected Foundry Plus versions of its arms for dust, heat and water. Vision checks for scratches and coating defects can sit between stations. Our post on faucet polishing shows force-controlled polishing on brass taps, which have the same kind of curved, shiny surface. Heinz Berger's award winning polishing chain is an early example of such linked cells.

A white industrial robot visible between the two open halves of a large metal casting die
A white industrial robot visible between the two open halves of a large metal casting die

An ABB robot seen between the open halves of a die casting die. ABB builds protected Foundry versions for wet, dirty cells. Photo: ABB

At home, buyers notice the price, the finish and the coating. Enamelled cast iron is selling well: The Times reported on September 4 that Le Creuset had record sales, helped by younger buyers. Paint robots already spray enamel and other coatings on many products. Since shoppers now ask what their non-stick coating contains, makers want consistent, well documented coating processes, and a robot spraying a measured film could log how much coating went on each pan.

Several white ABB paint robots with thick hoses working over a car body in a booth
Several white ABB paint robots with thick hoses working over a car body in a booth

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

Cost is the first obstacle. Polishing cells are expensive to set up because every pan shape needs its own path and fixture, and cookware ranges change often. Polishing dust and coating fumes need extraction, and guarding must keep people away from fast arms near spinning wheels, which is where SafeMove helps. Then there is the knowledge problem. An experienced polisher can feel a bad finish, and turning that feel into force settings and robot paths takes engineers who understand both the metal and the software.

A shiny stainless steel saucepan with a glass lid and a long metal handle on white
A shiny stainless steel saucepan with a glass lid and a long metal handle on white

A polished 18/10 stainless steel saucepan from Hahn with an induction base. Photo: Cooks and Kitchens / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Innovation

AI solutions for effortless ABB robot control.

Automation

Robotics

ceojohntran@chatwithrobot.net

+84905311611

© 2025. All rights reserved.

qtran1215@gmail.com

Instagram