Can cobots help improve your welding throughput?

A shortage of skilled workers is increasing in Canada, and this challenge is only likely to intensify in the next few years. Between 2019 and 2028, about 700,000 skilled trades workers are expected to retire. Meeting the demands created by these retirements will require the recruitment and training of thousands of additional skilled workers. It will also serve as encouragement for shops to consider newer technologies to pick up the slack and take on thankless, repetitive work.

A viable alternative for many tasks in welding is the use of collaborative automation, or “cobots,” which can handle the dirty, dangerous, boring tasks, including monotonous welding operations. Collaborative robots have made an impact on welding operations over the past few years, and the adoption rate will only increase as people become more familiar with them. They are easy to program and quick to deploy, which makes automation possible even for the smallest of shops.

Canadian Fabricating & Welding wrote about cobot adoption in “Cobot or not”, where we looked at how a cobot could fit into your operations. In the article, we saw that cobots can take over many labor-intensive jobs, like tending resistive welders.

At T&W Stamping in Ohio, for instance, Universal Robots’ UR5 cobot handles a 52 second cycle that includes picking up the part from an inbound conveyor, presenting the part to two G.E. Schmidt resistive welders, and placing the finished part on the outbound conveyor.

This is just one example of how shops are achieving high-quality, consistent automated welds with significantly less ergonomic stress on employees.

If you are interested in learning more about collaborative robots, how they are changing people’s thinking about welding automation, and how you might take advantage of this shift, consider registering for the “Gaining Productivity and Profits with Cobot Welding” webinar by Universal Robots which takes place Tuesday, September 28, 2021, at 2 pm ET.

In this webinar, attendees will learn:

• How manufacturers can grow business with low investment
• How collaborative robots can help attract and retain staff
• How to reduce risk in implementing automation - do it yourself or use an integrator-partner
• The new speed of collaborative robotics: ROI and time to market

The presenters are Chris Claringbold, Universal Robots’ area sales manager for Canada, and Josh Pawley, co-founder and VP, business development, Vectis Automation. Vectis Automation is a provider of ready-to-weld automation systems that are powered by Universal Robots, UR10e cobot. Vectis helps manufacturers boost productivity by decreasing the learning curve, setup time, risk, and expense of robotic welding.

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