The ever increasing demand to improve efficiency, raise production rates and reduce costs, whilst maintaining or improving quality, is driving the need for the automation of many manufacturing processes. Traditionally speaking, the default control measure for the risk management of automation in manufacturing has been the use of physical guards. Robot cell installations with physical guards can be difficult to deploy on some manufacturing assembly line. Given that these physical safeguarding measures separate the human operator from the moving robot, the work performed by robots is effectively detached from that performed by human operators. This can be a limitation on some flow lines where the human tasks cannot be completely separated from those of the robot. From a safety perspective, physical guards do not completely mitigate against the risk of injury due to a human trespassing the guarded area with the locks and interlocks engaged, or deliberately limiting their effectiveness through local process modifications. Aerospace manufacturing processes typically involve a complex mixture of high and low skilled tasks, and therefore are a prime example of a system that cannot be completely automated. Hence, it is proposed that a collaborative human/robot work cell would allow the lesser skilled manufacturing tasks to be allocated to a robot while the human operator carries out the more skilled tasks. This would in effect result in the design of a semi-automated flexible assembly line where the human and the robot work alongside each other and collaborate with each other within a pre-defined, shared and safeguarded workspace. Work has been undertaken at Cranfield University to investigate the potential for using a collaborative robotic system in aerospace manufacturing. The aim of this research is to offer an example of a truly collaborative, inherently safe, robot work cell that integrates readily available robotic systems with affordable, off-the-shelf, safety-rated electro-sensitive protective equipment.