Abstract: Apparatus comprising a carriage fitted with rollers displaced on a track for picking up and raising single flat workpieces which are lying in a stack, such as sheet metal plates, and for feeding them individually to an adjacent processing station. The apparatus further comprises a lifting device with suction lifters and the carriage equipped with moveable impact arms for the workpiece is displaceable from an initial position near the processing station which is outside the effective range of the lifting device to a loading position under the workpiece which has been lifted by the suction lifters for taking the workpiece over and back to the initial position near the processing station where the workpiece is fed to a plate shears or to a bending press. The impact arms serve to shift each workpiece while resting on the carriage on to the processing station.