Gear Manufacturing: From Gear Shapers to ABB Robots

How gear manufacturing moved from Schiele's hob and the Fellows gear shaper to robot cells that load hobbers and grinders, and where ABB IRB 4600 robots fit.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

10/8/20265 min read

Gear manufacturing turns a round blank into a part whose teeth have to mesh within a few micrometres, millions of times, without noise. This post follows that work from clockmakers and the first gear cutting machines to the robot cells that now load hobbing machines, carry gears through heat treatment and feed grinders. We look at what gear makers showed at IMTS 2026 in Chicago, where ABB robots such as the IRB 4600 and IRB 6700 fit in a gear line, and what electric cars and humanoid robots will ask of gear plants over the next few years.

Worm shaped hob cutter meshing with a large helical gear on a metal machine spindle

A hob cutting the teeth of a helical gear on a hobbing machine. Photo: Kolossos / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

How gear teeth were cut before robots loaded the machines

For centuries the finest gears came out of clock and watch workshops, where wheels were small and production was counted in dozens. Hobbing, the method that still cuts most gears today, probably started in that trade. The first patent for a hobbing machine went to Christian Schiele of Lancaster, England, in 1856. A hob is a cutter shaped like a worm with gashed teeth. It turns against the blank while the blank turns with it, so the teeth are generated one after another instead of being cut one slot at a time.

Old black and white photo of a small white factory building with a square tower beside a hill

The original Fellows Gear Shaper Company plant in Springfield, Vermont, in 1897. Photo: Fellows Gear Shaper Company via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Two machines from the late 1890s set up the modern gear shop. In 1896 Edwin R. Fellows, an engineer at Jones and Lamson in Springfield, Vermont, designed a new gear shaper and co-founded the Fellows Gear Shaper Company with James Hartness and William D. Woolson. The company built its first machine in 1897. A gear shaper uses a cutter that looks like a gear. It strokes up and down while it rolls with the blank, and that motion lets it cut internal teeth a hob cannot reach.

Tall pale grey gear shaping machine with a vertical cutter head above a round work table

A Lorenz gear shaping machine, which cuts teeth with a gear shaped cutter. Photo: Laurens Sanders / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Also in 1897, Hermann Pfauter in Germany built a hobbing machine that could cut both straight spur gears and helical gears. Through the 20th century car and truck factories ran long rows of these machines, and for decades a person stood at each one to clamp a blank, start the cycle and lift the finished gear out. That loading is now done by gantry loaders, conveyors and industrial robots that exchange signals with the CNC gear machine.

Row of dark cast iron gear cutting machines behind a glass barrier in a museum hall

Older gear hobbing machines on display in a machine tool museum. Photo: 先従隗始 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Gear manufacturing cells with ABB robots today

At IMTS 2026 in Chicago, from 14 to 19 September, the big gear machine builders talked mostly about running without people. Gleason built its stand around closed loop manufacturing and lights out production. It showed a new 80PS power skiving and hobbing machine, a profile grinder with gear inspection on board, and a 300GMSP nano measuring system with integrated cobot loading, and it pitched machines for the small, high precision gears that humanoid robots need. Nidec Machine Tool America showed RoboCam for the first time, a robotic camera that uses AI to check the condition of gear cutting tools.

Close view of a hob cutting a small metal gear held between centres while oil pours over it

A CNC gear hobbing machine cutting a spur gear under cutting oil. Photo: Affoltergroup / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB robots already work in several steps of the gear process. In 2015 ABB brought a robotic gear handling cell to Gear Expo in Detroit. In it an IRB 360 FlexPicker with a servo gripper and vision moves gears between alloy trays and baskets during heat treatment, the step that turns soft green gears into hard ones, and SoftMove lets the gripper give way on warped trays. ABB aimed it at gears for commercial and military vehicles, cars, boats and lawn and garden machines. The gear and gearbox maker Katsa Oy uses an ABB robot cell that probes, finish machines and deburrs gears from 50 mm to 1.5 m across.

Orange ABB robots hanging from an overhead rail above a row of fenced CNC machining cells

ABB IRB 6620LX robots on an overhead rail tending CNC machines at DAU Componentes, Spain. Photo: ABB

When a robot loads hobbing and grinding machines, the size of the gear decides which one. An IRB 4600 handles up to 60 kg and suits shafts and car gears. An IRB 6700 carries 150 to 300 kg, enough for heavy ring gears and gearbox housings. We have a separate post on CNC machine tending, and gear cells follow the same pattern with extra checks: the robot often places each gear in a measuring station, sorts out rejects and stacks good parts for heat treatment. Cells like this are usually planned and tested in RobotStudio before any steel is cut.

Large white ABB robot arm grinding a round steel part with sparks flying in a factory

An ABB IRB 6700 grinding a steel part in Teqram's EasyGrinder cell at Ancofer. Photo: ABB

What electric cars and humanoids ask of gear plants next

Electric cars change the job in the gear shop. With no engine to cover it, whine from the reducer gears is easy to hear, and engineers at FEV note that transmission noise that was fine in a combustion car is no longer acceptable in an EV. Gear makers respond with tighter tooth micro geometry. In practice that means more grinding and more measuring, and every gear has to travel between machines without a dent on its flanks, which is careful handling work a robot can repeat all shift.

Green gear grinding machine with a vertical column standing behind a glass rail in a museum

A gear grinding machine on display in a machine tool museum. Photo: 先従隗始 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Humanoid and service robots add a second market: small, very precise gears for their joints. These are light parts, often made in large batches, and they suit compact arms such as the new generation ABB IRB 1200 or a GoFa cobot standing next to a fine pitch hobbing or skiving machine. ABB does not sell a ready made gear cell for humanoid parts, so this is a possible use of its robots. The same models already tend small CNC machines in other industries.

Small white ABB industrial robot arm on a red and white pedestal against a pale background

The new generation ABB IRB 1200, launched in 2025, a compact arm for machine tending and small parts. Photo: ABB

Several problems are still open. A full cell with gripper changes, measuring and safety fencing is a large investment, and small job shops with short runs find it hard to justify. Programmers who understand both gear geometry and robot paths are rare. Lights out production also depends on inspection catching a worn hob or a bad tooth before a whole batch is ruined, so AI tool checks like RoboCam matter as much as the robots that move the parts.

Gold coloured hob cutter with rows of teeth next to a steel shaft with freshly cut gear teeth

A coated hob next to the spur gear teeth it has cut on a shaft. Photo: Dirk Gräfe / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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