IGAR, a tall, polite and gangling robot is set to make his Clifton Moor masters millions of pounds.

The £150,000 cybernetic fellow who thinks, measures and acts to prevent injuries, and save the plate glass industry a fortune was developed by technicians at Forward + Thompson's factory in Atlas Road.

Because of him the 15-person firm is expected to double its workforce to 30 by the end of the year.

IGAR - or as techies have it, Insulated Glass Articulated Robot - is programmed to sense the size of newly-produced plate glass sealed units then perfectly tape their edges to prevent cuts and damage in transit. It is a safety process usually carried out by up to eight glass factory operators per plant who often have to process 4,000 glass plates per day of varying sizes, at some risk of injury.

But unlike them, IGAR is never ill, does not take holidays, follows instructions to the letter and will not flag, for 24 hours a day. What is more, he does it faster. Where it takes two workers between 30 and 40 seconds per plate, IGAR whips around the edges in as little as 15 seconds.

Already glassmakers have ordered two of the orange-coloured cast iron and aluminium beasts while five more are expected to be cloned by December to meet the growing industry demand.

Martin Askham, managing director of Forward+Thompson, is introducing potential customers from all over Britain to the caged robot so that they can see IGAR at work. He believes that the expenditure will pay for itself within a year.

"The potential is enormous," said Mr Askham as the demonstration production line began and IGAR swung into action at the touch of a console. "There are hundreds of glass manufacturers in the UK, each with at least two lines. We are pretty excited because the savings IGAR can effect are in millions of pounds and it means that staff can be more usefully deployed in the glass production process.

"And IGAR is not only useful, he's polite," said Mr Askham, and to prove the point IGAR bleeped his need for new cassettes of insulation tape. When "fed" the robot backed away and bowed his appreciation before immediately going back to his task.

The need for IGAR was identified by Peter Rawsthorne, the sales and marketing director, while Peter Hope, project manager designed him, with Mr Askham's help.

Updated: 09:44 Tuesday, March 23, 2004