Ahead of the curve
G&W Products offers its customers more than 2,500 available welding hours each week in MIG, TIG and spot welding in both stationary and portable environments. Five Lincoln Electric robotic welding systems help the company keep pace with higher volume MIG welding demands, particularly in light of the well-documented shortage of skilled welders in the United States.

Reports from the American Welding Society (AWS) say this shortage, combined with the drive for higher productivity and reduced costs, will continue to boost the popularity of automated welding systems on shop floors. In fact, the market for welding robots is growing at a higher rate than any other industrial market. The industrial sector, as a whole, boasts sales of more than 15,000 robots a year, including welding robots. A report released in June 2008 from the International Federation of Robotics notes the supply of robotic welding systems in use in both North and South America increased 42 percent over the previous year.

That’s not to say manual welding performed by the G&W’s highly skilled team of 20 welders doesn’t have its place in the company’s production process. The size of a job plays a determining role, allowing the company to employ the substantial skills of its manual welding team more efficiently – where they are most needed.

"Most items we are welding robotically can be manually welded, as well. The factors driving us to robotic welding are related to cost and capacity, rather than capability," Sagraves says. "Volume is the most important variable in determining a fit for robotics. With some parts, we make several hundred pieces of a particular item each month, so it makes sense to robotically weld it. This allows us to be cost effective by spreading the cost of the equipment and the fixturing over the cost of the job and while involving our highly skilled welders with jobs of varying volumes or items that are too large or complex for the robotic cells."

Integrated system
The robotic welding area at G&W features three System 50HP Dual Headstock Robot Cells, a System RCT TurnTable Robot Cell and a System 40 TurnTable Robot Cell, all from Lincoln Electric Automation. The company produces more than 20,000 parts on its robotic systems each month, some of which can be welded six times faster than they could be welded manually.

"Our robotic line handles MIG welding of aluminum parts, high-tensile-strength steel and weldment geometries that require creative fixturing," says Doug Keehn, G&W’s director of advanced manufacturing. "Once the fixture is proven out and the programming is completed to meet these challenges, the production and quality are quite consistent."

Pre-engineered, the System 50HP units are dual-headstock workstations designed for medium-sized parts that can be welded using the flexibility of reorientation – something that fits well with G&W customers’ varied parts orders, which can include structural, plate, tubing, sheet metal extrusions and even special shapes.

"These cells can handle our larger, more complex parts," Keehn explains. "Its rotary design also helps us more effectively process aluminum parts."

The System 40 TurnTable Robot Cell, another pre-engineered solution, provides short delivery times and reduced variable costs to enhance standard parts production. Its indexing, two-position turntable workstation works well with G&W’s small- to medium-sized parts that can be welded without re-orientation. For higher volume jobs involving medium-sized production parts, programmers at G&W rely upon Lincoln’s System RCT, a flexible turntable robotic welding and cutting workcell. This unit features a patented, center-mounted positioner design that maximizes the robot work envelope by bringing it closer to the workpiece.

"Both of these units are versatile and can handle some of the simpler parts we have at a higher volume, delivering increased cost effectiveness," Keehn says.

All of the robotic systems, which are equipped with fume exhaust hoods and Fanuc Robotics® arms, deliver superior weld quality and consistency, a plus in medium-to-large volume parts production. The other most notable benefits come in setup and programming, particularly if the weld isn’t too complex, Keehn points out.

"If a part requires only a few welds, we can get sets of eight to 10 parts completed in two minutes," he says. "What’s more, every robotic cell has two stations. While one station is welding, we can load the other side with the same part, or a completely different part, provided the filler metal and gas are the same. This allows nearly uninterrupted production."