Munitions Manufacturing Robot: Shell Shops to ABB

Making ammunition is heavy, dangerous factory work, and the push for more of it has put the munitions manufacturing robot back in the news. Defence buyers in Europe, the Middle East and the United States want higher output quickly, and new plants are being built around automation. This post stays on the factory floor and leaves weapons design alone. It covers how shells were made by hand in the First World War, how robots first reached ammunition plants, what defence factories are automating in 2026, and where ABB robots could fit.

Women workers among rows of shells at the Chilwell filling factory in 1917. Photo: Horace Nicholls, Imperial War Museums via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

How munitionettes made and filled shells by hand

In Britain during the First World War, shell making became a mass job for women. Historian Angela Woollacott estimated that about one million women worked in munitions industries by mid 1918, and by June 1917 munitionettes made about 80 percent of the British army's weapons and ammunition. Much of the work was done by hand at benches and lathes, from turning shell cases to stencilling, painting and filling them. Workers who handled TNT were nicknamed canary girls because their skin turned yellow, and the exposure could also cause liver failure and anaemia.

Women working machines in a British munitions factory during the First World War, May 1917. Photo: Imperial War Museums via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The filling factories were the most dangerous places of all. At National Shell Filling Factory No. 6 in Chilwell, Nottinghamshire, women stacked, painted and filled shells in long sheds, as the official photographs from July 1917 show. In July 1918 an explosion at Chilwell killed more than 130 workers. Barnbow near Leeds had already lost 35 women in a 1916 blast. Losses like these are the oldest reason to automate in this industry, because every machine on the line means one fewer person beside the explosive and the heavy steel.

Munition workers painting shells at National Shell Filling Factory No. 6, Chilwell, in 1917. Photo: Horace Nicholls, Imperial War Museums via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Machines took over the metal parts first. The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania, built in 1908 as a steam locomotive shop, was making shells by 1953 and today runs five forge presses, four nosing presses and more than 120 tracer and CNC lathes. An Army report on computer-aided manufacturing at its ammunition plants noted that the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant had bought 14 industrial robots to handle metal parts. At Scranton, a 2010 Army photo shows an industrial robot lifting a glowing shell forging at a press, the same job robots do in automotive forges, as our post on forging robots explains.

An industrial robot lifts a glowing shell forging at a press at Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, 2010. Photo: Linda Loebach, US Army via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Which munitions jobs robots are taking on in 2026

Demand changed the picture after 2022. Scranton made about 14,000 artillery shells a month before the war in Ukraine and about 36,000 a month by September 2024. New plants have had mixed results. A General Dynamics plant in Mesquite, Texas, meant to forge 155 mm shell bodies, had delivered none that met contract specifications by March 2026, and the Pentagon Inspector General blamed a high-risk line built on older machines. In October 2026 L3Harris opened a new solid rocket motor factory in Camden, Arkansas, and said it combines advanced automation, digital manufacturing and trained artisans.

Shell bodies moving along the production line at Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in September 2024. Photo: President of Ukraine via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The clearest example of a fully automated line came on 22 October 2026. UAE group EDGE said its LAHAB plant had reached full-rate production on a 40 mm grenade ammunition line that assembles sub-components without manual intervention. The line has three modules and can make up to 1.5 million rounds a year, and LAHAB's chief executive said automation cut manual labour by nearly 60 percent. At sister company HALCON, an assembly line uses 11 industrial robots, more than 300 sensors and six machine vision stations. In the US, the ARM Institute won nearly $90 million in September for ten projects at 12 arsenals, depots and ammunition plants.

Machined steel projectile bodies on a work table at Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, 2024. Photo: President of Ukraine via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Our sources show no announced ABB munitions line, but ABB's standard robots already do the matching jobs in other industries. Heavy arms such as the IRB 6700 tend forging presses and grind steel parts. IRB 5500 paint robots are built to work in explosive paint booth air, which is close to the coating step. IRB 460 and IRB 660 palletizers stack heavy goods at the end of lines. GoFa CRB 15000 cobots work beside people on inspection and assembly, much like the cobot Northrop Grumman now uses to help fasten housings on F-35 avionics modules. Putting any of these into a munitions plant is a possibility that would depend on the plant's own explosives safety rules.

An ABB robot handles a glowing crankshaft forging at a press, from ABB's 2003 forging robots datasheet. Photo: ABB

What comes next for robots in ammunition plants

Safety is likely to decide where robots go first. The most hazardous steps, such as handling energetic materials, are where an operator is most at risk. The ARM Institute projects list improving safety in energetics production as one goal, and an amendment filed in the US House in 2025 called for robotic load, assemble and pack systems starting at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant. For metal parts, the likely next step is more robot tending of forges, lathes and paint lines, plus robot palletizing of finished shell bodies before they ship to filling plants.

An ABB IRB 660 palletizer, the kind of robot that stacks heavy goods at the end of a line. Photo: ABB

Cost is the first open problem. Mesquite showed that a plant full of machines can still fail to make parts to specification, and robot cells only pay off when a contract runs long enough. Programming and qualification come next. Each change of shell type means new paths, grippers and tests, so engineers usually build and check cells in simulation first, for example in RobotStudio. Crane Army Ammunition Activity ran into this in 2020, when a mechanical engineer there said procuring the robot programming services was the biggest challenge of its demilitarisation cell, where a robot arm loads old rounds into a lathe.

Finished projectiles stacked on pallets behind safety tape at Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, 2022. Photo: Dori Whipple, US Army via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Skills and safety complete the list. A robot near energetic material needs certified equipment, guarding and safety functions such as ABB SafeMove to limit speed and working zones, and the people who maintain it need specific training. The ARM Institute projects include workforce training for that reason. None of this reaches homes, since munitions automation stays inside controlled factories with strict access. For the factory floor, the change since the Chilwell sheds of 1917 is measured in how many people still have to stand next to the explosive while it is handled.

A teacher and students at an ABB Robotics Education Package cell with a GoFa cobot. Photo: ABB

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