ABB IRB 6700 Robot Financing

Production throughput on heavy material handling and spot welding lines comes down to two variables: payload capacity and cycle time. The ABB IRB 6700 was engineered to push both. With payload variants from 150 kg to 300 kg and a 2.6 m to 3.2 m reach range across the family, the IRB 6700 covers the heavy automotive body shop and structural fabrication tasks that require both the mass-handling ability of a large arm and the speed of an arm designed for high-cycle production. ABB claims the IRB 6700 uses 15 percent less energy per cycle than its predecessor, the IRB 6640, and the lean-weight arm reduces wear on the J1 and J2 axes that previously limited maintenance intervals on comparable platforms.

We finance IRB 6700 installations from $100,000. Complete turnkey cells for body shop welding or heavy press tending commonly run $200,000 to $500,000 including the OmniCore or IRC5 controller, tooling, and integration. Projects under approximately $400,000 qualify for application-only approval. Larger cells require three months of bank statements alongside the business profile. Funding in about two weeks from completed application is standard. Automotive manufacturing buyers and aerospace fabrication operations both make regular use of the IRB 6700 at the upper payload tiers where competing platforms run out of capacity.

ABB builds the IRB 6700 in six payload configurations: 150, 155, 175, 200, 235, and 300 kg. The 150 and 155 kg variants carry the longest reach (3.2 m) and serve body-shop transfer and spot welding applications where the arm must reach across the full width of a vehicle body. The 200 kg variant balances payload and reach (2.85 m) for press-tending applications in stamping plants. The 300 kg version, the heaviest in the family, handles structural components in heavy equipment and aerospace fabrication where the part mass pushes the ceiling of what the 200 kg class can manage without risk of payload exceedance.

Automotive body shops across the Midwest manufacturing corridor, particularly in Kokomo and the broader Stellantis and GM supplier networks, run the IRB 6700 on spot welding duty alongside older-generation arms, often mixing it with FANUC R-2000iC cells on the same line. Both platforms are financeable through available programs, and facilities managing a mixed-brand fleet can finance the full lineup through a single lender relationship rather than splitting across brand-specific programs.

The IRB 6700 uses ABB's SafeMove2 safety software, which enables configurable speed and position limits without physical fencing for certain collaborative-adjacent applications. This does not make it a collaborative robot in the ISO 10218 sense, but it does enable tighter integration with manual workstations on the same line when the safety risk assessment supports it.

Sixty-month terms are the most common for IRB 6700 cells. At $300,000 for a fully integrated spot welding cell, the monthly cash outflow on a 60-month term at market rates is manageable against the labor and throughput offset the cell delivers from day one of production. Automotive supplier buyers often prefer 72-month terms to align the financing with the production program length, which can span four to six years before a platform changeover. For an arm that will serve a single-customer program, matching the debt to the program term rather than an arbitrary finance convention makes cash flow planning cleaner.

For buyers evaluating depreciation strategy, the IRB 6700's acquisition cost qualifies for Section 179 and bonus depreciation in loan or $1 buyout lease structures. At $300,000 or more, the first-year tax benefit is substantial. Buyers in profitable years who want to maximize that benefit should structure a loan or $1 buyout lease rather than an FMV lease, where the depreciation treatment is different because ownership rests with the lessor. We walk through both options with every buyer who asks because the right answer is not the same for everyone.

IRB 6700 units that have been on the floor for three to five years often carry significant residual value, particularly if they are certified refurbished or running current-generation IRC5 or OmniCore controllers. A robot sale-leaseback converts that residual value to cash without removing the arm from production. The facility sells the robot to a lender at its appraised fair market value and leases it back under a multi-year term. Proceeds fund working capital, a new cell acquisition, or facility expansion, while the IRB 6700 continues producing on the original line.

For buyers who financed an IRB 6700 at peak rates and are looking to lower their debt service, automation equipment refinancing can extend the term, lower the rate, or both depending on current lender appetites and the borrower's updated credit profile. We evaluate refinancing requests on a case-by-case basis and run the math on both the rate reduction and the total interest cost before recommending a path.