Cabinet Manufacturing: From Joiners to ABB Robots

How cabinet manufacturing moved from joiners and Hoosier cabinets to panel saws, CNC routers and robots that sand and spray doors, and where ABB robots fit in.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

10/12/20265 min read

A kitchen cabinet is a simple box, but a modern kitchen holds dozens of them, and every door, drawer front and edge has to match. That is why cabinet manufacturing left the joiner's bench for the factory early, and why it is changing again now, as robots join the panel saws and CNC routers to sand, spray and stack parts. This post covers how cabinets were made by hand and then in Indiana factories, and how the 1926 Frankfurt kitchen turned fitted cabinets into a product. It then looks at what machines and robots do in cabinet plants today, while the industry is cutting jobs, and where ABB robots could fit next.

Modern kitchen with white cabinets, wall ovens and a dark stone countertop
Modern kitchen with white cabinets, wall ovens and a dark stone countertop

A modern home kitchen with rows of white fitted cabinets and built-in ovens. Photo: XanderL / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

From the joiner's bench to the Hoosier cabinet and the fitted kitchen

For most of the 19th century, very few homes had built-in kitchen cabinets. Food and dishes went into a dresser, a pantry or a cupboard made by a local joiner or cabinetmaker from boards cut and planed by hand. Around the 1890s, furniture makers in Indiana found that a freestanding kitchen cabinet with storage and a worktop was easy to sell. The Hoosier Manufacturing Company of New Castle, Indiana, became one of the largest makers, and by 1920 it had sold two million cabinets. Its name stuck, and "Hoosier cabinet" became the generic word for the type, even when dozens of other companies built them.

An old cream colored freestanding kitchen cabinet with upper doors, a worktop and drawers
An old cream colored freestanding kitchen cabinet with upper doors, a worktop and drawers

A Hoosier cabinet in original condition, the freestanding kitchen workstation made in Indiana factories. Photo: Kepster578 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Then the cabinet moved into the wall. In 1926 the Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky designed the Frankfurt kitchen for Ernst May's New Frankfurt social housing project. It was a compact, standardised kitchen with built-in cabinets, planned as one unit for low cost and efficient work, and some 10,000 were built in Frankfurt in the late 1920s. It is often called the forerunner of the modern fitted kitchen. In the United States, built-in cabinets became standard from the late 1920s and Hoosier sales fell away. The Hoosier company was sold in 1942 and liquidated.

A row of small metal pull-out bins above grey built-in cupboards in a 1920s kitchen
A row of small metal pull-out bins above grey built-in cupboards in a 1920s kitchen

Built-in storage bins and cupboards of a Frankfurt kitchen at the V&A East Storehouse in London. Photo: 14GTR / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Fitted kitchens meant cutting large numbers of panels to exact sizes. Wilhelm Altendorf built the first sliding table panel saw in Germany in 1906, and it let one worker cut big sheets square and accurately. Computer numerical control came much later. A CNC router can do the work of a panel saw, a spindle moulder and a boring machine, cutting parts and drilling holes straight from a digital file. Edge banding, once glued by hand, became an automated step in which a machine presses a strip onto the panel edge with hot-melt adhesive. Robots arrived last, mostly to carry panels between these machines.

A large light blue CNC router with a wooden workpiece on its bed and a dust hose above it
A large light blue CNC router with a wooden workpiece on its bed and a dust hose above it

A DMS CNC router with a carved wooden piece on its bed at SITU Fabrication, 2022. Photo: Rhododendrites / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Robots on the cabinet line as plants consolidate

A cabinet plant today is a line of saws, routers, edge banders, boring machines and finishing booths, and it still employs a lot of people. Some of those jobs are going. On September 30, 2026, WBTV reported that MasterBrand Cabinets had told North Carolina officials on September 28 that it would lay off 391 workers by November 27 at its Kinston plant, where it is shutting down its Value Semi-Custom cabinet operations. Other operations will continue at the site. The cut comes nearly five years after the state announced MasterBrand's plan to add more than 450 jobs there.

A woman in an orange shirt pushes a white panel into an edge banding machine in a workshop
A woman in an orange shirt pushes a white panel into an edge banding machine in a workshop

A worker feeds a panel through an edge banding machine in a furniture workshop. Photo: Akpeski / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB robots have worked in furniture and cabinet-type production for years. ABB's 2010 case study on Swedwood's factory in Hultsfred, Sweden, which made the PAX wardrobe for IKEA, describes 30 ABB robots running around the clock and a packed wardrobe leaving the line every ten seconds. ABB's brochure for the wood industries shows robots tending machines, stacking panels and painting, with an Integrated Paint System meant to give an even film build and less overspray. Force control software lets an arm adapt to knots and changes in the wood when sanding, which our post on woodworking robot sanding explains in more detail.

A robot arm wrapped in a blue protective jacket with a spray gun beside a tall stack of wood panels
A robot arm wrapped in a blue protective jacket with a spray gun beside a tall stack of wood panels

An ABB painting robot in a protective cover next to a stack of wooden panels, from ABB's wood industries brochure. Photo: ABB

Cabinet doors are where ABB cobots have reached smaller shops. Cobot Intelligence sells a cabinet door sanding cell built on an ABB GoFa. A laser profiler measures each door, the cell sands slab or Shaker doors up to 50 by 26 inches, and operators run it from the FlexPendant touch screen without writing code. The company says the cell halves sanding time and cites a customer, Olympic Doors, that went from sanding 75 doors a day by hand to 150. ABB launched its own OmniVance Collaborative Surface Finishing Cell in May 2026, a GoFa sanding cell programmed by hand guiding or with Wizard easy programming.

A white cobot arm in a protective cover pressing an orbital sander onto a curved wooden panel
A white cobot arm in a protective cover pressing an orbital sander onto a curved wooden panel

A GoFa cobot sands a curved wooden panel with a Mirka sander inside ABB's OmniVance finishing cell. Photo: ABB

Where cabinet making goes next

In large plants the next step is linking machines that are already automated. Today a person often lifts a panel off the saw, feeds it to the edge bander and carries it on to the drill. A robot such as the IRB 6700 could plausibly take over those moves, with an IRB 460 or IRB 660 palletizing at the end of the line and Flexley Mover AMRs carrying carts of parts between cells. We base this on what ABB robots already do in wood plants. We know of no such project in a kitchen cabinet factory.

An orange ABB robot arm holding a tall stack of wooden boards over a roller conveyor
An orange ABB robot arm holding a tall stack of wooden boards over a roller conveyor

An ABB robot with a clamp gripper stacks wooden boards from a conveyor, from ABB's wood industries brochure. Photo: ABB

Smaller cabinet shops and custom makers have a different problem. They build to order, so almost every kitchen has its own sizes and door styles. Cobots like GoFa suit that work because they can be moved, taught by hand and set up for short runs. Engineers can also build and test a cell layout in RobotStudio before buying anything, checking that the robot reaches every panel size the shop makes. Homeowners will probably notice the change as shorter lead times and more finish options. The robots themselves stay in the factory.

An orange ABB robot arm with a suction gripper holding a thin wooden panel above a table
An orange ABB robot arm with a suction gripper holding a thin wooden panel above a table

An ABB robot lifts a wooden panel with a vacuum gripper in a woodworking cell. Photo: ABB

Several problems are still open. A finishing cell is a large purchase for a shop with a dozen people, and paint robots need ventilation, explosion protection and someone who can tune spray paths. Wood varies from board to board, so sanding and spraying still need people who can judge a finish by eye. Plants that are cutting jobs may also struggle to keep the technicians who run their robots. The most likely path is gradual, with robots taking the dusty, repetitive steps first and skilled people kept for setup, quality checks and custom orders.

Orange ABB robot arms handling a brown panel at a green woodworking machine in a factory
Orange ABB robot arms handling a brown panel at a green woodworking machine in a factory

An ABB robot places a panel into a woodworking machine, from ABB's wood industries brochure. Photo: ABB

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