Brick Industry

Abstract

The brick industry was one of the first non-automotive industries to implement robots for production operations. In 1966, Burns Brick Company, Macon, Georgia, implemented two AMF Versatran robots for “hacking,” or setting of dry bricks in patterns on kiln cars, preparatory to firing, and achieved transfer rates almost double those possible with human labor. This installation still represents the state-of-the-art for robotics, in brick manufacturing. The installation was described by Henry Knox Burns II, President and Henry Knox Burns III at the First Symposium on Industrial Robotics (1970) at ITTRI (Ref. 1). This chapter describes the installation at Burns Brick Company.