In recent years greater emphasis has been placed on keeping manufacturing costs down, profits levels up and staying ahead of competition. With labour and material cost at an all-time high more cost effective production solutions are being investigated by means of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). The application of industrial robots to FMS and to production cells has, however, been rather limited. Proper use of robot within the frame work of a flexible manufacturing cells was up to now only made in relatively few applications. This is probably due to their relatively high cost, the need to distribute the cost between machines in the cell and the problem of balancing machining operations throughout the cell to maintain component flow. However, we expect Flexible Manufacturing Systems and robot systems having less peripheral units by expanding robot variety from simple types to high performance types, development of better sensors and robot languages, higher performance robot controllers and cost reductions. Hence, this paper investigate the importance of applying robotic principles in support of improved flexible manufacturing systems, leading eventually to the factory of the future able to operate unmanned for substantial periods, especially at night.