Why robot?
Is now the right time to invest in automation?
By RICHARD MANDEL, senior editor
ne of the best ways to gauge overall
O acceptance of a technology is to
observe its presence in the
marketplace. For example, the first
combination watch-calculators, made by
Hewlett-Packard, sold for nearly $900 to
those who could afford the novelty. Within
five years, anyone with $20 had the ability to
sport one on his or her wrist. A more recent
example is the cell phones with cameras,
music storage and other extras that are
popular with the 12- to 16-year-old set. Just a
few years ago, cell phones were an elite
novelty themselves, and only were used as
mobile telephones.
At a 6-employee shop in
Colorado, a Lincoln Electric
eCell welds a bracket for
agricultural equipment.
16 www.weldingdesign.com
Today, sophisticated welding robots that
were the leading automation items for a
privileged few welding shops can be
purchased at the catch-all bazaar, eBay,
alongside antique pottery, collectible watches
and special-edition Barbie dolls.
So, if welding robots are readily available,
why isn’t one in your shop?
Robot as employee
The welding robot, once seen only in large-
scale operations such as auto production lines
and oilfield pipeline shops, has been finding
employment in successively smaller shops.
Improvements in motors and motor
controllers have led to smaller robotic
equipment; while control interfaces have been
simplified to reduce an operator’s learning
time. Concurrently, the prices for complex
robots have fallen, and cost and sophistication
is less of a barrier to adding automation today
than it was as recently as a decade ago. Or, as
Tom Smith, vice president of industrial robots
integrator RobotWorx (www.robots.com),
puts it, welding robots are now “just another
tool in the arsenal – it’s not voodoo anymore,
it’s a dependable, proven tool.”
In a promotional brochure for Lincoln
Electric’s (www.lincolnelectric.com)
automation division, it’s suggested that, “In a
perfect world, your labor costs would be
predictable, steady and reasonable;
increasingly intense competition wouldn’t be
squeezing your profit margins; the available
pool of skilled welders would be vast; (and)
your customers wouldn’t be demanding
higher quality, shorter turn-around times, and
the use of tougher-to-deal-with materials.” To
which Geoff Lipnevicius, engineering
manager at Lincoln Electric, adds: “Any
decision making for a robot system typically
involves the shop owner looking at financial
factors — what is the payback, and what’s
the return on investment. There are additional
November/December 2006
factors that sometimes override the financial
aspects, such as improvements in quality,
skilled labor shortages.”
Once programmed, the robot can produce
consistent results, as long as the components
presented to it are consistent in form and
fixturing, and the equipment itself is
regularly maintained. The machine can
operate without regard to a time clock, and
reports to work at the flip of a switch.
Moreover, automating the welding process
provides a buffer against the diminishing
pool of skilled welders. In an article printed
August 15, 2006, the Wall Street Journal
said: “Welding, a dirty and dangerous job,
has fallen out of favor over the past two
decades, as young skilled laborers pursue
cleaner, safer and less physically demanding
work. Now, thanks to a global boom in
industrial manufacturing, skilled workers are
in greater demand than ever. Companies
can’t find enough of them.” Until more
welders become available, robots can handle
repetitive production-line tasks that do not
entail great variation between parts.
While buying a robot is less expensive in
the long run — as opposed to hiring an
employee who requires a paycheck, training,
health benefits and time off — skilled
welders certainly are not totally replaceable.
Many jobs still require on-the-spot decisions,
such as when a misalignment occurs between
the parts being worked. Not all jobs can be fit
into an automated weld cell, either, so they
require welding personnel working away
from shop floors, such as bridge repairs,
many other outdoor jobs and non-OEM tasks.
There’s also a need for someone to set up
the robot. “The best people running welding
robots are good welders,” says Smith, adding,
“A good welder who can program, can then
program five welding robots. How valuable
is that to a company?” As one engineer from
Miller Electric (www.millerwelds.com)
recently remarked, “I can train a welder to
program a robot easier than I can train a
programmer to weld”.
Competing
A consortium called Save Your Factory
(www.saveyourfactory.com), formed a few
years from several manufacturing companies,
associations, and publications (including our
sister magazine American Machinist), urges
North American manufacturing companies to
November/December 2006
Family-owned shop not too small for robotic welding
G roff AG, a manufacturer of agricultural equipment, was started in the late
1970s by a Nebraska farmer with an idea that led to a better way to fertilize
his crops. The company added another farm implement to its production line,
and was purchased in early 2006 by another farmer, Allan Winick, who moved it
to his 2,000 acres in Wellington, Colo.
Winick found himself the only trained welder on his staff, and was putting in
10- to 12-hour days, manually MIG welding brackets, seams and discs. He
sometimes worked two-and-a-half days welding 70 brackets.
“We only have six employees, and I was spending too much of my time
welding. While we were able to fill the orders coming in, the business wasn’t
growing at a pace I was satisfied with,” Winick says.
He chose to add a compact robotic cell that was particularly suited for
smaller fabrication shops — Lincoln Electric’s eCell, with a Lincoln PowerWave
355M welding power source. The 70 fertilizer brackets now are completed in
less than five hours.
“With the robot, my downtime is minimized due to the flexibility its
repeatable programming gives me,” Winick said. “Automation offers a shop my
size tremendous advantages — more than I realized when I first decided to buy
a robot. After the initial setup, testing and programming, all I have to do now is
set it and let it do its job.”
Component parts are manufactured from a high carbon plate steel that range
in thickness from 1⁄4 in. to 3⁄8 in. Discs, which remove debris and break up clods
of dirt for a variety of soil conditions, are cut into shapes by a plasma cutter.
The pieces are then pulse MIG welded with .045-in. diameter wire and a 90
percent argon/10 percent CO2 shielding gas.
With the welding cell, Winick has been able to move from MIG spray welding,
where post-weld spatter cleanup was an issue, to modified pulsed MIG welding
that requires virtually no cleanup. He added that, before installing the robot,
there could be considerable downtime when he moved from one weld to
another, or from one product to another.
“Our finished products have to stand up to a variety of conditions, including
heavy, rocky soil, so the quality and integrity of its construction and welds are
imperative. Our reputation is on the line,” Winick said.
Since he added the robot, the company is working on expanding its dealer
network from 9 to 15 states — with an eye toward adding more states down the
road. Winick has started to consider other applications for his company’s robot,
and is talking with a couple of manufacturers about outsourcing some of their
welding jobs to Groff Ag.
“We’ve been able to accommodate our regular demand while growing our
capacity for other orders and applications. I would have had to hire at least
three full-time welders to accomplish what I got with one eCell,” Winick added.
“The robot has also allowed us to steadily build up our inventory, which we
weren’t always able to do before. We’re now better equipped to meet the
demands and expectations of our distributors and customers and have set the
stage to continue to grow Groff Ag’s business.”
recognize automation, robotics, and efficiency
measures such as lean manufacturing, as more
cost-effective and profitable alternatives to
off-shore manufacturing. In a white paper
titled “Manufacturing Competitiveness
www.weldingdesign.com 17
Robots

through Robotics and Automation,” issued by
the consortium in December 2005, the author
says “There are numerous factors to consider
when moving manufacturing operations
overseas…. Producing products in other
countries such as China also provide
challenges in maintaining high quality parts.
Counterfeiting costs the global automotive
parts industry $12 billion a year; $3 billion of
that total is in the United States. In addition,
according to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing,
companies investing in the Chinese market
underestimate the market situation, failing to
perform risk assessments and seek council….
All data supports the fact that through
automation, robotics and other lean
manufacturing operations, North America can
be cost competitive with countries like
China.”
As manufacturing decentralized into
smaller and smaller job shops, the need for
high product volumes strained the small
shop’s abilities. Even after one robot is
installed to handle a major contract, many
shops have found that the weld cell is kept
busy only three days out of seven. Software
improvements that have made programming
a robot more “user-friendly” have helped
shop managers to learn how to program many
different part setups into the memory,

Small fab shop meeting rigorous automotive quality and productivity standards

M ilwaukee-based Res Manufacturing

Company primarily produces metal
stampings, with secondary operations
that include heat-treating, shot blasting,
deburring and welding for diverse
industries such as automotive, cookware
and lawn and garden.
Prime automotive customers are Tier I
and Tier II suppliers that supply
components such as engine baffles,
interior seating parts, and brackets to
Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co.,
Honda Motor Company, General Motors
Corp., Daimler-Chrysler, Jaguar, Nissan
Motor Co. LTD. and Mazda Motor Corp.
Res Manufacturing operates in a 90,000-
square-foot facility and employs 80 people.
Dave Johnson, project engineer at
Res Manufacturing, notes that the profit
motive contributes to pressures to
achieve high-level productivity and
product quality. "Since we have endless
demand for greater productivity, tools to
increase efficiency and quality are
mandatory," he says.
A 14-year engineering and production
veteran, Johnson elaborates on the
pressures that face a small company in
the automotive fabricating market. He
cites as a case-in-point a contract that
the company won to produce
automotive seating components that
required MIG welding. With no prior
production-level MIG experience, Res
Manufacturing was challenged to
achieve quality and productivity.
“We knew how to handle the
forming, but were now faced with
measurable welding requirements,”
said Johnson.
After researching options, the
company installed a PerformArc
model 102S robotic welding cell
from Panasonic Factory Solutions
Co. The decision was based on a
recommendation from the gases and
welding equipment supplier, whose
previous experience with this work
cell indicated rapid and successful
implementation of robotic welding, A
fast learning curve for launching
commercial production and operators’
comfort level were also key factors.
Sorenson Industrial Systems, Inc.,
based in Waukesha, Wis., was brought
in to help integrate fixturing for the weld
cell. “When integrating products from
multiple sources into a single system, it
is more difficult, slower, and usually
involves performance compromises.
Once we received the CAD drawings of
the two initial parts involved, we were
able to design tooling within three weeks
that satisfied specs and were tailored to
the specific robot cell,” said President
Gregg Sorenson.”
“Utilizing our 3-D models and
Panasonic’s 3D simulation package
design software,” continued Sorenson,
“we could rapidly and accurately verify
issues of the robot’s motion, such as
reach in multiple directions and access to
A seat bracket welded
in Res Manufacturing’s
robot cell.
weld areas. Everything was done off-site
so that the customer’s manufacturing
and engineering associates were not
tasked with these efforts.”
Johnson notes that Res Manu-
facturing’s prime concern was
programming: “The robot’s teach
pendant, using a Windows CE-based
interface, offered our operators a familiar
and easy means of programming. In fact,
as the welding procedures were being
developed, some of our people were
learning how to program. No time was
lost by carrying out both steps in parallel.”
The work cell, he added, was up and
running quality parts only a few hours
after installation, programming, and
initial test welding. In addition, Sorenson
and Johnson collaborated to develop a
proprietary design and manufacturing
procedure that eliminated post-weld
shrinkage.

18 www.weldingdesign.com November/December 2006

 speeding changes between jobs and occupying the
robot full time, even as much as to two shifts.
Thus, the small job shop not only can meet quotas
and compete, but can increase business and grow as
well. “A guy who bought a robot through us for a
specific job will call six months later, ready to buy a
second robot because he’s been able to take on more
business, often because he could increase the jobs
handled by the first robot,” Smith says.

When not a robot

The practicality of investment in automation is not
necessarily due to high production volumes a robot can
provide, however. Lipnevicius cites installations with
heavy earthmoving equipment manufacturers, such as
Caterpillar Inc. and John Deere Co., where the robot
runs non-stop for 9 to 10 hours on a single part such as
a cab assembly or a shovel. There are also cases in pipe
welding in which a robot may weld a few pieces of 6-
in. water pipe, then a few pieces of 2-in. steam line.
Despite a non-production-line flow, the robot lends
accuracy and speed, especially because it can maneuver
non-stop around a piece of pipe — in some cases
reducing weld time from 30 minutes to 9 minutes.
However, there are times where a robot is not
appropriate for a shop. Says Lipnevicius, “We’ve www.wdfinfo.biz/005.ad
turned down jobs. Most of the time, the jobs relate to
repeatability of the parts. The robot can be
programmed to be very adaptive to changing
conditions, but if those conditions go outside the
envelope of what the robot can accommodate, then
you’re going to have a condition where you’ll be
making scrap very productively.”
Additionally, there are shops that have a lot of
welding and still not have practical use for a robot. One
example is a Canadian company that makes large
industrial equipment with heavy steel cabinets, augers
and other components. The company considered
installing a welding robot in their US repair and spare
parts facility, but found that manual welding was more
practical for them because every job was different.
That repair facility does use an automated plasma
cutting table, however, because most of its parts are
simple, two-dimensional shapes.
Ultimately, automating the small weld shop has
become easier, owing to a wide array of systems from
which to select. Many reliable used robots are also
available, especially since most auto manufacturers
choose to replace their robots when retooling their
production lines. More and more shops also are buying
rather than leasing robots, an indication that shop
owners are buying for the long-term. “Small shops are
very smart,” says Smith, “They watch their profits,
they watch their cashflow, and they know what they
can bring to a project.” ■

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November/December 2006 19
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