and the operating zone of the piecing robot 14 a is decreased by that distance fig5 b schematically shows a situation in which the two piecing rotors 14 a 14 b are not yet initialized this is the case e g after first start up of the spinning machine 10 in this case neither the position of the piecing robot 14 a nor of the piecing robot 14 b is as yet known to put the piecing robot 14 b into operation it is moved into the initialization position i 1 during this initialization travel it covers the distance b u2032 without encountering an obstacle it can thus be assumed that the segment b u2032 is a zone that can be freely traveled and this segment is defined as operating zone b u2032 of the piecing robot 14 b that it can service after initialization here too the distance b u2032 covered during the initialization travel was detected e g through position markings until the second piecing robot 14 a has also been initialized in its initialization position i 2 and the normal operating zones a b can be assigned to the piecing robots 14 a 14 b the piecing robot 14 b services the operating zone b u2032 as described above regarding fig5 a the operating zone b u2032 of the piecing robot 14 b can be extended during the initialization travel of the piecing robot 14 a to initialization position i 2 by the distance covered by the piecing robot 14 a or can be reduced when the piecing robot 14 a.