Embodiments herein describe forming clusters of network connected orchestration components (referred to herein as “orchestrators”) and distributing the management of a plurality of work cells among the orchestrators. That is, each cluster can include a plurality of work cell orchestration nodes which are the compute resources used to host an orchestrator for managing the work cells. Each cluster can be assigned to manage a particular type or version of a work cell. Because managing a work cell may use only a small fraction of the compute resources of the orchestration nodes, each orchestration node can manage multiple work cells. The embodiments herein describe distributing the work cells amongst the orchestration nodes using a work cell table which permits the orchestration nodes to assert ownership over new work cells and enable automated failover in case one of the orchestration nodes fails.