Increasing requirements for the high quality of industrial robot performance made the vibration control issue very important because the vibration makes it difficult to achieve quick response of robot motion and may bring mechanical damage to the robot. This paper presents the vibration mechanism of an industrial robot which has flexible joints. The joint flexibility of the robot is modeled as a two-mass system and its dynamic characteristics are analysed. And some characteristics of the two-mass system, especially for the joint of industrial robots, such as disturbance, non-linearity and time-varying characteristics are studied. And finally, some considerations on controller design for the flexible joint of industrial robots are discussed.