Robotic Machining: ABB Robots That Cut the Part

How robotic machining grew from hand mills and the 1952 MIT NC mill to robots that mill, grind and drill parts themselves, with ABB's IRB 6660 and RobotStudio.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

10/14/20265 min read

Robotic machining means a six axis robot holds the spindle or grinder and cuts, drills or finishes the part itself, instead of loading a separate machine tool. For decades robots were thought too flexible for that job, so they stood beside CNC machines and fed them. New control systems now make robot arms behave more like machine tools, and that is starting to change the split. This post covers how machining went from hand mills to numerical control, why robots first only tended machines, what is new in robotic machining in 2026, and where ABB robots and software fit.

White ABB industrial robot grinding a round steel part with sparks flying

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

How numbers took over the milling machine

In the early 1940s a part was milled by a machinist turning hand wheels and reading dials, like the young women photographed at aircraft plants during the Second World War. The change began with John T. Parsons and Frank Stulen of Parsons Corp. in Traverse City, Michigan, who made helicopter rotor blade parts for Sikorsky and wanted a machine that cut from punched card coordinates. In 1949 the US Air Force funded the work, and Parsons brought in Gordon Brown's Servomechanisms Laboratory at MIT.

Young woman in a hairnet and blue work shirt adjusting the handles of a milling machine

Mary Louise Stepan, 21, working on transport parts in the hand mill at Consolidated Aircraft, Fort Worth, Texas, 1942. Photo: Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

MIT showed its numerically controlled milling machine in September 1952, built on a surplus Cincinnati Hydro-Tel mill. It worked, but it used about 250 vacuum tubes and was reported to cost $360,000. Commercial machines followed quickly: Arma Corporation announced an NC lathe in 1952. Programming was the next problem. Douglas T. Ross led the APT language project from 1956, and APT was shown publicly in February 1959, a year after GE's PRONTO language had already reached commercial use. Cheaper minicomputers in the 1960s and microprocessors in the 1970s turned NC into CNC, which is what nearly every machine tool uses today.

Spindle of a CNC milling machine cutting metal blocks with coolant spraying from blue and orange nozzles

Coolant spraying as a CNC machining center mills metal blocks. Photo: Glenn McKechnie / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Industrial robots arrived at the same time but took a different job. Arms such as the Unimate and later the PUMA moved parts, and in 1974 ASEA, ABB's predecessor, put a microprocessor into an industrial robot for the first time with its IRB 6. A serial robot arm is far less stiff than the cast iron frame of a milling machine, so cutting forces make it bend and chatter. For most of their history, robots in machine shops loaded and unloaded CNC machines, the work covered in our post on CNC machine tending.

Row of orange industrial robots of different ages on display in a museum hall

ASEA and ABB robots in the ASEA historical collection in Vasteras, with the IRB 6 on the left. Photo: Dependability / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Robots that cut the part themselves

On 28 September 2026 Automation World reported that Siemens is bringing its Sinumerik Machine Tool Robot to North America. The robot is run by a Sinumerik One CNC, and Siemens says its control concept gives 200 to 300% better path accuracy than conventional industrial robots, with productivity gains of 20 to 40%. Partner Danobat offers versions from 220 kg payload and 2.6 m reach up to 520 kg and 3.6 m, aimed at aerospace, defence, automotive and finishing 3D printed metal parts. Siemens first launched the robot with Danobat and autonox in March 2025.

Close view of a milling cutter in a spindle cutting a brass coloured plate covered in chips and coolant

An end mill cutting a metal plate on a CNC milling machine, 2015. Photo: Impressionmanufacturer / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB has worked on the same problem from the mechanical side. Its IRB 6660 is built for pre-machining castings: a parallel arm, a dual bearing design and strong gears and motors help it take the changing forces of milling, deburring and grinding. ABB's view is that a heavy robot with a light spindle damps vibration best. Options include Machining Force Control, which keeps contact force steady, and Foundry Plus 2 protection against chips and coolant. In grinding, ABB IRB 6700 robots run Teqram's EasyGrinder cell at Ancofer, grinding steel parts.

White ABB robot arm beside a grey tilting part fixture in a large industrial hall

The EasyGrinder robot cell with its ABB robot and part fixture inside Ancofer's steel plant. Photo: ABB

On the programming side, RobotStudio Machining PowerPac converts CNC G code, including five axis APT and ISO code, into RAPID robot programs and simulates the paths before they run. In a 2024 white paper with Porsche Consulting, ABB said a study of past projects showed path creation dropping from four hours to three minutes and cycle times improving by up to 33%, and that the software typically paid for itself within three months. If you are new to the tools, start with our RobotStudio course and the RAPID instruction guide.

An orange ABB robot arm with a tool held over a long wooden beam on a green clamping table

An ABB robot works on a long wooden part clamped in a fixture, with dust hoses overhead. Photo: ABB

What still separates robots from machine tools

The most likely growth is in parts too big for a machine tool. Aircraft panels, wind turbine parts and large castings would need a huge machine to hold them, while a robot on a track can be brought to the part. Siemens points its machine tool robot at aerospace and energy for that reason. Finishing jobs such as deburring, grinding and trimming 3D printed parts are another fit, because they take less cutting force than heavy milling and benefit from a robot's reach.

Factory floor seen from a staircase with rows of white CNC machines and workers

Rows of CNC milling machines making guitar necks at the Taylor Guitars factory, 2009. Photo: Marcin Wichary / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

For small shops the change is mostly about programming. Machine shops already have CAM software and people who write G code, so a robot that reads the same code is much easier to adopt than one that has to be taught point by point. Desktop mills and small CNC routers have made machining a hobby for makers at home, and a robot that takes CAM output directly lowers the barrier for workshops that never had a robot programmer.

Small black PUMA robot arm on a stand next to its grey control cabinet and an old computer terminal

A Unimate 500 PUMA industrial robot from 1983 with its control unit at the Deutsches Museum, Munich. Photo: Theoprakt / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Even with better control, a robot arm deflects more than a machine tool, so hard materials and tight tolerances still favour a CNC mill. Siemens says the MTR also has significantly higher dynamic stiffness than conventional robots, the property heavy cutting needs most. Siemens itself says its biggest productivity gains come in processes without large cutting forces, such as waterjet and laser cutting. Then there are people. A robotic machining cell needs someone who understands both robot programming and cutting, feeds and tool wear, and in most shops those two skills still sit with different people.

Worker in a hard hat using a touch screen control panel next to a robot cell

An operator runs the Ancofer grinding cell from a control screen. Photo: ABB

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