Gear Motors from NORD DRIVESYSTEMS “MESH” with Automation Provider

Since its founding in 1999, MESH Automation of Dawsonville, Georgia, has been meeting automation challenges head-on. The company designs and builds robotic palletizing, machine tending, material handling, and warehouse control systems for an eclectic mix of customers across practically every industrial manufacturing sector.

Proud Partnerships

Part of the company’s success stems from strategic partnerships with some of the leading names in automation. These include FANUC, Siemens, and Cognex, to name a few, all of which contribute to MESH Automation’s reputation for quality and dependability. But with automation comes the equally important need to bring products and materials to and from the machine tool, packing station, or inspection system, and do so without fail.

For this critical task, MESH depends on a supplier with equivalent recognition throughout the industry: NORD DRIVESYSTEMS. For the past three years, each of these conveyors has used NORD helical worm gear motors to move whatever’s sitting on top of it.

This particular partnership began thanks to a COVID-induced supply chain disruption; after MESH Automation’s previous gearmotor supplier ran into inventory problems.

Diverse Needs

The partnership with NORD has served them well. As noted earlier, MESH enjoys a diverse customer base, with no industry segment exceeding 25 percent of its business.

NORD helps in this respect as well. For instance, MESH technicians can quickly change the gear ratio on any motor, a normally onerous chore made possible by NORD’s modular, interchangeable components. This flexibility allows them to easily adjust the speed and torque to match the application without having to stock additional components.

Whatever the customization level, these platforms often fall under the “MAC” family of automation cells—the MACTend for machine tending, the MACPac for packaging tasks, the MACGrind for finishing small- to medium-sized parts, and so on. Together with its assortment of process-specific “bolt-on” modules, each offers a starting point for MESH engineers to design what are effectively custom solutions but without the associated price point.

Prove It

Among the many customer success stories posted on the company website is a manufacturer of carpet tiles, which needed to feed “master” tiles to a press that cuts them into smaller pieces, a step known as “planking.” Here, MESH delivered a cell containing a pair of vision-equipped robots and custom end-of-arm tooling able to replicate the delicate but ergonomically taxing motions of a human operator.

In another, a company that constructs hurricane-proof sheds wanted an automated way to screw the wall and roof panels to the wooden frame. In the past, this operation proved both labor-intensive and error-prone. Yet MESH designed a system with two robots, each armed with a screw gun to fasten the panels, following pre-programmed paths and working around window and door openings while ensuring consistent attachment quality.

Fast Movers

MESH’s latest project may be its most ambitious yet: a robotic induction system for e-commerce sortation, which debuted at the recent ProMat 2025 trade show. The system uses a vision-guided robot to pick items from bins, scan barcodes on either side of the box, package, or envelope, and place each on a high-speed conveyor feeding a bomb bay-style sorter. Here again, the system depends on NORD worm gear motors to keep everything moving.

For more information, visit https://www.nord.com.