Ladder Manufacturing: From Wood Rungs to ABB Weld Cells

A ladder looks like the simplest product a factory can make: two rails and a row of rungs. Ladder manufacturing is harder than it looks, because the maker is selling a safety device that people trust with their weight at height. This post follows ladders from wooden rungs to aluminium and fibreglass, covers the Werner and Louisville Ladder news of 2026, and looks at where robot welding and riveting fit. It also asks how ABB robots could join in. No source shows ABB in a ladder plant, so that part is a possibility.

An aluminium extension ladder leaning against a garage. Photo: MarkTraceur / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

From rope and wood to aluminium and glass fibre

Ladders are very old. A rock shelter near Castellote in Spain shows a figure climbing a rope ladder to reach a bee colony, and researchers date it to about 7,500 years ago. Wooden ladders followed. One from the Roman era in the Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen has three rungs fixed to two rough-hewn rails. For centuries, ladder making meant a craftsperson choosing straight-grained timber, cutting joints and fitting each rung by hand, so every ladder differed slightly from the last.

A wooden ladder from the Roman era in the Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmegen. Photo: Museum Het Valkhof / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Aluminium changed the trade in the 1940s and 1950s. Louisville Ladder, founded in 1946, says it grew from a small company making aluminium step and extension ladders and claims to have been first to market. Werner, founded in 1922 as a metal moulding maker, entered climbing products in 1950 using its aluminium extrusion capacity. Patents describe the usual joint: a rung end is swaged, or squeezed into shape, against the flat web of the rail. Those patents mention two rung styles, one with five parts and one with three.

A folding aluminium step ladder leaning on a wall. Photo: Amin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Fibreglass came next, because it does not conduct electricity. Louisville Ladder says that in 1961 it worked with Morrison Molded Fiberglass, now Strongwell, to make the first portable non-conductive fibreglass ladders. Wikipedia dates Werner's fibreglass production to 1963. Both dates come from company-linked sources. In the US, separate ANSI standards cover each material: A14.1 for wood, A14.2 for metal and A14.5 for fibreglass. Robots reached the trade later. Little Giant, a Utah maker, runs robotic welding cells on its aluminium ladders. A trade report says productivity rose 25 to 30 percent after an earlier robot attempt failed over wire feeding problems.

The green fibreglass rails of an extension ladder with aluminium rungs. Photo: Angelsharum / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Ladder plants and ladder recalls in 2026

Two 2026 stories show where the industry stands. On 7 October the Construction Index reported that Werner had opened a Centre of Excellence at Burton upon Trent in England, with new jobs and several production lines moved from Maldon in Essex. Werner says the move will make it the largest ladder producer in the country by volume. On 6 August the US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that Louisville Ladder was recalling 1.77 million attic ladders because bolts can break in use. The firm had 11 reports of broken bolts and one injury. The ladders were made in Mexico and sold from November 2012 to July 2026 at retailers including Home Depot and Lowe's.

A folding wooden attic ladder pulled down from a ceiling hatch. Photo: Kborer / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Welding is where robots earn their keep in an aluminium ladder plant. H.K. Heun in Germany welds ladders for civil engineering in a CLOOS cell with two identical stations, so one worker unloads and reloads while the robot welds on the other side. Because ladder widths and rung counts vary, the robot uses a tactile gas nozzle sensor to find the start and end of each seam. A patent describes the same idea in general terms: clamp every part in a jig, then make a series of arc welds.

An ABB arc welding robot with a positioner that turns heavy parts. Photo: Ana 2016 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Where do ABB robots fit? ABB has arc welding robots with positioners that turn heavy parts, and a GoFa Cobot Arc Welding Package that lets a worker teach a weld by hand with the Easy Teach Device. For a small ladder shop, that cobot route could suit short runs of different ladder lengths. A larger plant could program several welding robots offline in RobotStudio to check reach and cycle time before installing them. Wizard easy programming also lets staff without code experience build simple routines. Again, no ABB ladder installation has been published.

ABB's GoFa Cobot Arc Welding Package on a welding table. Photo: ABB

What comes next for ladders and the robots that make them

At home, the nearer change may be fewer climbs rather than different ladders. Telescoping and attic ladders are common, and the recall shows how much can depend on a few bolts. People still climb ladders to clean gutters and replace bulbs, and the gutter cleaning robot post shows one way machines might take over part of that work. A home robot arm will not replace the stepladder in the garage soon, so ladder quality still matters to buyers.

A man sets up an aluminium ladder on a car park in the Philippines. Photo: Judgefloro / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The open problems in the factory are variety, skill and cost. A ladder line makes many lengths and widths, which means flexible fixtures and robots that can adapt. Aluminium is also hard to weld by robot. Wing Enterprises sent its first robotic welding equipment back after wire feeding and inconsistent welds, and a trailer maker said success needs knowledge of both robotics and welding. For hybrid ladders with glass fibre rails, one patent describes metal rung assemblies fastened with rivets, bolts or screws, which would need robot drilling and fastening rather than welding.

Teaching a weld by hand with ABB's Easy Teach Device on the GoFa torch. Photo: ABB

Over the next few years the likeliest changes are more automated welding, riveting and inspection, with people moving to fixture setup and quality checks. Smaller makers could use cobots to cut the time between a design change and a finished ladder. The main job stays the same: each weld and rung joint must match on the thousandth ladder as on the first, and a robot repeats a programmed path without tiring. The ABB robot use cases page shows how similar cells work in other metal trades.

An engineer programs a robot cell in RobotStudio next to an ABB industrial robot. Photo: ABB

Innovation

AI solutions for effortless ABB robot control.

Automation

Robotics

ceojohntran@chatwithrobot.net

+84905311611

© 2025. All rights reserved.

qtran1215@gmail.com