In the background of Industry 4.0, injection molding industy has entered the era of shuffling, meager profit and transformation. Under the working environment of labor shortage, high cost and large labor turnover, in face of the stagnant market, rising injection molding cost, constantly increasing needs of production from customers and increasingly competitive circumstance, injection molding enterprises have to transform and upgrade to follow up the trend of market development in the way of automatic production.

Industrial manipulator is a kind of high-tech automatic production equipment developed recent decades, which is also an important branch of industrial robots. It can complete various tasks in a plan,  owning both advantages of humans and robots in aspect of structure and property, especially the intelligence and adaptability of human beings. It has a vast prospect in every field of national economy for the accuracy of working and the ability to complete tasks in various working condititons.  In the process of modern production, manipulators are widely used in automatic production line. The research and development of robots has become a quickly emerging technology that improve the development of robot arms.

Up till now, domestic manipulators are mainly used for machining, casting-forging, heat treating, while they cannot meet the needs of industrial production and development in quantity, variety and property. Thus, it should expand the applied range gradually at home. Manipulators in fields of casting and heat treating should be a focus, which can reduce labor intensity and improve working environment.  

When applying specialized robot arms, it should meanwhile develop the universal ones. If the condition is permitted, teach-mode manipulators, computer-control manipulators and plug-in manipulators should also be developed.