Gives an example of the use of offline 3‐D graphical simulation to assist in program generation for a robot palletizing operation, a technique which is proving increasingly cost effective. Describes GRASP, the 3‐D graphical simulation tool for robotics applications whose special palletizing module was employed, and reports on the successful outcome. Claims that GRASP has enabled verified robot programs to be generated which can be produced in less than a day, saving more than two days over the manual programming approach and reducing cell downtime from three days to less than two hours.