Mechanism to transfer a footwear upper assembly between stations of a multi-station system

A transfer machine to move a footwear upper assembly between stations in a processing system, that comprises:

• an end effector having means to grasp the footwear upper assembly, said end effector being movable about seven axes to accommodate particular angles and positions of the footwear upper assembly;
• a base serving as reference in an X-Y-Z coordinate system with respect to which positions of the footwear upper assembly are known during movement of the footwear upper assembly within the processing system;
• and
• an interconecting mechanism that connects the end effector to the base in a manner that permits orientation, horizontal positioning and vertical positioning of the footwear upper assembly with respect to said stations and relative to said seven axes by movement which includes movement along three translational axes, the X-Y-Z axes of the transfer machine, pivotal movement with respect to the base about the Y-axis, tilting movement about the X-axis, pivotal movement about the Z-axis and a further pivotal movement about the Y-axis.