The movement of technology has made it economically possible for welding automation to be part of small manufacturing shops. In the past small manufacturers that had to perform welding as part of the process to complete their products had to do this task manually. Usually the work to be done was in the form of small batches of parts, which meant about 10 or 12 parts to be welded at a time. Welding automation has been available for a long time, but it was the type that welded car bodies together in an automotive plant. This automation was not economically feasible for a smaller business. The customers who hired the small welding job shop to their work usually would not require a large number of parts to be welded for the parts that they needed. So the economy was just not there for a small job shop to purchase welding automation to do the work.
There has been very little change in the types of parts and the numbers of parts that customers require from small welding shops today. What has changed is the type and cost of welding equipment that can be utilized in a job shop to do this type of work. There has also been long-standing resistance to the purchase of welding automation by small business due to the thought that they would not have the correct knowledge to make the machines profitable or they do not feel comfortable using new equipment and training their personnel to do so. These companies feel that investing in this new technology may not get the returns on investment that would be required. One of the realistic drawbacks to the utilization of welding in a small shop setting has been the fact that the setup time between jobs for the welding devices is too long and complex so the use of them is prohibitive. One of the foremost considerations that should be made when looking at welding is whether or not the robot would require more parts to get the correct configuration than the number of parts in the batch of parts would warrant. This could create a long-term cost problem.
The keyword for welding automation now is flexibility. A welding device must be able to work on different configurations to be profitable for a small shop. The trick to making this profit is to match the welding apparatus to the volume and types of jobs that the shop does routinely. The labor-intensive nature of manual welding can be replaced by automation. This can easily be done with a device that can be adjusted for different configurations. Some of these devices can be changed over from one fixture to another while parts are loaded and unloaded into the work area. Often it is reasonable to combine an effective welding device with a material handling robot that will move parts, eliminating or reducing the need for manual work by operators.
Not all parts can be made effectively using welding. It is important for your company to determine if the parts you will be asked to make can be done by a welding device. Some parts just cannot be repeatable which is a requirement of the automated welder. If adjustments cannot be made in the way the parts are made so that automation can do it, then it is not feasible to invest in this type production equipment. A great consideration for a small job shop is know whether the volume of welding that will be required of the equipment will cover the investment long term. Just reviewing the revenue from a few limited welding jobs. There needs to be a considerable stream of revenue-producing jobs that can support he investment in capital equipment. That being said, it is important to note that the ROI for such equipment now is not nearly as considerable as it used to be. Robotic welding cells that have all the flexibility that a small shop would need have productive lifetimes of 15 or 20 years. The rate of return on investment would occur in two years or less.
The pressure in the demand for small more flexible welding devices that can be used in job shops has been felt by robotics manufacturers. These companies are responding to this demand by creating robotic devices that can handle a wide degree of flexibility and be able to change from job to job in a realistic amount of time. These manufacturing units can handle an increased payload in an larger work area. These welding machines offer other cost cutting to companies in that they are designed to use less consumables to get the job done exactly right. Less wire, gas, and torch consumables are used to lay down perfect welds without the drawbacks of having over welding of joints and the worker fatigue that can come from a manual process.
Our consulting engineers can answer any questions that you might have about the automation of your business or they can supply you with a no-obligation quote for automation. If you have questions about automation or you would like to request a quote for automation, please click the “Request a Quote” button below and fill out the form to submit your question or request.
