An automatic work transfer system for conveying a basket carrying work through a row of processing stages at a work station in any desired sequence. The basket is lowered into a tank at each stage and oriented therein for processing for a predetermined dwell period, at the conclusion of which the basket is hoisted out of the tank and transferred to the next stage where the procedure is repeated. The system includes a supporting rail laterally displaced from the row of stages and parallel thereto. Riding on the rail is a robot provided with a pair of vertical shafts supported on an elevator. Cantilevered from the shafts are a pair of arms which extend over the stages, the ends of the arms being pivotally connected to a cross piece. Depending from the center of the cross piece is a rod terminating in a hand adapted to engage the handle of the basket. Thus when the robot advances on the rail the hand is then shifted along a horizontal X-axis to a position in general alignment with a selected stage, when the elevator is operated the hand is raised or lowered with respect to the selected stage along a vertical Y-axis normal to the X-axis; and when the shafts are simultaneously rotated, the hand swings, but without rotation, relative to a Y-axis perpendicular both to the X and Y axis to orient the basket with respect to the stage. Separately controllable X, Y and Z motors are subject to programmed instructions appropriate to the processing to be carried out.