Used industrial robots for welding, handling, palletizing, machine tending, packaging and factory automation. Technical articles, buying guidance and application insights from URT.
A robot can move smoothly during a test and still create problems once it returns to a die-casting cell. Buyers evaluating used die-casting robots need to look beyond basic motion. Mechanical wear, heat exposure, controller condition, tooling, and integration requirements all affect whether reuse makes sense. Die casting can expose equipment to heat, contamination, lubricants, … Read more
A clean exterior and a successful power-up do not tell you how a used industrial robot behaved during production. The robot alarm history can provide another layer of evidence by showing which faults were recorded, whether similar alarms occurred repeatedly, and which areas deserve closer inspection before a buying decision is made. Alarm history is … Read more
The Purchase Price Is Rarely the Largest Financial Risk Companies often spend considerable time negotiating the price of an industrial robot while paying much less attention to the costs that appear after the purchase order is signed. The hidden automation costs that emerge during integration, commissioning, production ramp-up, and long-term operation frequently have a greater … Read more
The Purchase Price Is Only the Beginning The decision between used vs new industrial robots is rarely determined by the purchase price alone. A lower acquisition cost can make a refurbished robot attractive, but the real financial outcome depends on how well the equipment fits the production process, how much integration work is required, and … Read more
The Lowest Price Is Not Always the Lowest Total Cost The price of the used industrial robot is often treated as if it were determined only by the robot model. In practice, two robots carrying the same model designation can have very different values because they represent different levels of technical risk, remaining service life, integration … Read more
Plastic injection molding is one of the most automated manufacturing processes in existence — and also one where robotic cells are most frequently misapplied. The question is rarely whether a robot can be integrated into a molding operation. Technically, it almost always can. The question that actually determines whether the project delivers value is more … Read more
Robotic CNC machine tending is one of the most common entry points into industrial automation for machining operations — and one of the most frequently misexecuted. The technical side of CNC machine tending is well understood: a robot loads a blank into the machine, the CNC runs its cutting cycle, the robot extracts the finished … Read more
Simulation always looks calm. Everything flows. Nothing vibrates. Nothing shifts. No surprises. On screen, the robot never hesitates. That’s why, when the system moves from the digital environment to the real plant, the contrast is often brutal. The first contact with the real material — the one with history, moisture, internal stresses, inherited tolerances — … Read more
The silent fear of a robotic cell becoming obsolete. “What if in two years this no longer works for me?” Few industrial decisions trigger as much reflection as this one: “What happens if I invest in automation… and then the product changes?” This is not a technical question. It’s a strategic one — and a … Read more
Implementing robotic automation in an industrial plant is not only about purchasing a robot or installing a cell. The real question is whether the system delivers measurable value after implementation. To evaluate that value, companies need clear robotic automation KPIs. These key performance indicators show whether automation is improving productivity, quality, availability, safety, cost control, … Read more