Six Days, One Task List, and a Robot Cell That Has to Sign Off

One robot programmer is wanted in Woodhaven, Michigan to finish the final commissioning and buyoff of a new automotive manufacturing system between September 25 and September 30, 2026. The cells pick and place parts, load racks and run vision inspection. FANUC is the requirement: Handling Tool and iRVision on R-30iA and R-30iB controllers. Keyence 2D and 3D vision is listed as good to have. The contract pays $60 an hour straight time, $78 overtime, $96 on Sundays and holidays and $60 an hour for travel time, with mileage reimbursed at $0.725 a mile, on a day shift of ten to twelve hours a day, five days a week.

What is left when a system is one list away from buyoff

By the time a new system reaches its final task list, the big questions are settled. The robots move, the conveyors run, the safety circuit has been walked. What remains is a list of items that are each small and each able to stop the sign-off on its own. On a typical robotic cell that list tends to look the same wherever you go: a cycle time a second or two over target, a path that clears its fixture with less margin than anyone likes, a vision recipe that is right in the morning and marginal once the light through the bay doors changes, an error recovery that works when an operator follows the instructions and not when they improvise.

None of those are dramatic. All of them are the difference between a system the customer accepts and one that is still being argued about in October. The programmer who closes that list is not inventing anything; they are finishing, carefully, under a date.

FANUC Handling Tool and iRVision, on two controller generations

The mandatory skill on this posting is FANUC, and it is specific: Handling Tool, the application software built for material handling, and iRVision, FANUC's integrated vision, on both R-30iA and R-30iB controllers. Listing both generations is a useful detail. It suggests equipment where an older controller and a newer one live in the same system, and it favours a programmer who is comfortable moving between them without needing the menus to look familiar.

iRVision is where pick and place and vision inspection meet. The camera finds the part, the robot corrects its pick from that offset, and an inspection step decides whether what it placed is good. When a cell like that is almost finished, the work is often in the edges of that loop: calibration that has drifted, a found-position tolerance set too tight for real parts, a part presentation that differs slightly from the samples it was taught on. FANUC's robot vision systems overview and its training catalogue are the right references for anyone brushing up before a start date.

Keyence is a plus, not a gate

Keyence 2D and 3D vision appears on the posting as good to have. That wording matters. A programmer who knows iRVision deeply and has done vision inspection on a different camera brand is inside this posting, not outside it. The principles transfer: lighting, contrast, region of interest, what a reliable feature looks like, and when to stop tuning a tool and fix the part presentation instead.

Racking is its own kind of pick and place

Loading automotive racks looks like ordinary pick and place until you watch it closely. Racks and dunnage vary more than fixtures do. They get bent, they arrive with slightly different pitch, a slot can be partly blocked, and the robot has to place parts into them in a known orientation without contact that damages a finished surface. The approach path into a rack is usually where the last clearance problems and the last cycle-time seconds hide, and it is exactly the kind of item that ends up near the bottom of a commissioning list.

Six days is a real contract

A short contract is easy to scroll past and often worth more than it looks. For a professional, it is a strong rate on a defined scope with a clear finish, travel time paid at the full straight-time rate and the miles covered, on a day shift. For someone between longer contracts, it turns a quiet week into a paid one and puts a new automotive system on their record.

For service companies it is the same arithmetic from the other side. A FANUC programmer who comes off a job this week can go straight onto this one, stay on your payroll and bill from Friday through Wednesday. Keeping a skilled person billable between projects is one of the quiet advantages a marketplace gives a service business, and it is available on every posting like this one.

For plants and builders up against a date

This contract exists because a customer faced a fixed buyoff date and chose to add one experienced person rather than add days. That choice is available to any plant, integrator or machine builder in the same position. On Automate America it is free to post, free to apply and free to hire. The customer names the work and the rate, that rate is public before anyone applies, and nobody bids anyone down to win it.

Professionals with ratings, reviews and completed contracts apply directly, often within minutes of an opening going live, and service companies can put their own available people forward. Once the opening is posted, promoting it is our job rather than the customer's: emails, images, video and articles like this one put it in front of thousands of professionals. Whoever gets the work, Automate America remains one approved supplier on the paperwork. If you have a list and a date of your own, post the opportunity free.

Woodhaven and the Downriver corridor

Woodhaven sits in the Downriver communities south of Detroit, close to one of the densest concentrations of automotive manufacturing and automation work anywhere. For a great many robot programmers in southeast Michigan this contract is a drive rather than a flight, which is part of why travel time and mileage are on the posting at all. Groups such as Automation Alley track how much of the industry's work is concentrated in this region, and anyone working around robots should know OSHA's robotics guidance, especially on a system that is still being commissioned.

What a strong application shows

The requirement is specific, so the strongest applications are specific. Say which FANUC controllers you have programmed and whether you have written and debugged iRVision processes yourself, not only run them. Mention racking or dunnage work if you have done it, and any vision inspection experience, whatever the camera brand. If you have taken a system through buyoff before, say what the last item on that list was. Keep your profile current too: ratings, reviews and completed contracts are the first things a customer reads when an application lands.

The contract, in one place

Robot Programmer, one needed. Woodhaven, Michigan. Robot programming support to finish final commissioning and buyoff of a new automotive system: pick and place, racking, vision inspection. FANUC Handling Tool and iRVision on R-30iA and R-30iB required; Keyence 2D and 3D vision good to have. September 25 through September 30, 2026. Day shift, 10 to 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. $60/hr straight time, $78/hr overtime, $96/hr Sunday and holiday, $60/hr travel time, mileage at $0.725 a mile.

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Tony Wallace, Co-Founder · Automate America · Text first 586-770-8083 · TonyW@AutomateAmerica.com