Introducing your first robot

Image courtesy of ABB.

Robotics and automation are no longer terms that fabricators find as intimidating as they once did. The ease of use of some of the simpler automation options, the growing tech-savvy of younger owners and operators, and the increased affordability of automation options are all conspiring to encourage more shops to consider automation in both welding and fabricating operations.

However, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the technology while forgetting the details that will make a robotics implementation successful. Canadian Fabricating & Welding caught up with three experts in the field to discuss how to make the most of your first robotics implementation.

Make Sure It Makes Sense

The first question you need to ask yourself is, “Why do we want to automate?”

“Many companies start down this road for the wrong reasons,” said Nick McDonald, application manager, robotics and applications, ABB Inc. “Some companies feel that they need to be seen as progressive, or are afraid to be left behind. But it’s important to be practical and have a clear idea of why automation is important to your operations. Is it to improve quality? Are you having quality issues? Is it to add flexibility or improve safety?”

As McDonald pointed out, it is easier to measure the success of your implementation if the goals are clearly mapped out.

Keep It Simple

The first point that every expert insisted upon was to keep it simple. When it comes to your first implementation, it is best to start with a relatively straightforward application that will allow you to get comfortable with the technology involved.

“Often when I’m asked to visit a potential customer, I walk past about four different operations that would be ideal for an initial automation application before we reach the very intricate job the client is most interested in automating,” said McDonald.

“What we want to do is make sure a shop has a first application that is a success,” said Samuel Bouchard, CEO and co-founder of Robotiq. Bouchard recently wrote a book called Lean Robotics: A Guide to Making Robots Work in Your Factory that looks at how best to tackle your first robotics implementation so that it can be repeated. “I often compare robotics implementations to home improvement projects. If you start with something very complex and don’t think the whole process through, you’re going to start, open a wall, and realize you’re going to have to redo the electricity, and that’s something you didn’t plan to do. From there the complications just grow. That’s what we want to avoid with a first project.”

It's important to ensure your fixturing is designed to meet all the needs of your robot. Image courtesy of Yaskawa Motoman.

Bouchard accepts that this can seem counterintuitive; usually when you look at shop improvements you automatically focus on the improvement with the biggest potential ROI.

“However, as I explain in the book, you should think of ROI not only as the return on the equipment you are installing, but also the return on your innovation investment,” Bouchard said. “Your team is going to be learning a lot, you are going to be building your skills and will better understand what is possible and what is difficult with robots. That learning will bring you just as much money as the equipment itself because you will be able to leverage that knowledge with your next project; the next rollout will be twice as fast. If you start with a very difficult project, it will drag and create frustration. The enthusiasm for a second project also won’t be as great.”

Yaskawa Motoman’s Zane Michael, director of strategic accounts for the thermal market, noted some of the complicated technologies that can make a robotic welding application go sideways. “You don’t want to start out with a robot that requires laser tracking or parametric programming produced by external sensors,” he explained. “That would be a complicated cell to keep running. I tell my customers, ‘Yes, I’ve got welding engineers that have been doing this for years and can make this sort of application work, but the problem is there isn’t the workforce here in your shop that understands how to make it work.’ Keep it simple, make it work, and get your staff trained on handling a robot.”

Invest in Training

McDonald noted that many people underestimate the need for training. Because people are so used to using computers today, it’s assumed that a robotics interface will be as straightforward.

“While it is certainly easier than it was 20 years ago for people to pick up on the concepts explained, a lot can still be learned by a future operator over the course of a few days of training,” McDonald said. “Even terms that are used will be new to a lot of users. For instance, someone working in a weld shop may never have heard the term tool centre point, and that is critical in programming.”

For welding robots, Michael said it’s important to train your best welder to operate it.

“I have nothing against electrical or mechanical engineers, but you have to understand welding,” Michael said. “If you are getting undercut or porosity or burn-through on the weld and you have to fix it, if the person responsible for the robot doesn’t understand the art of welding and what parameters to change, that’s a problem.”

Understand Your Setup

It is easy to look at a robotics application and assume it’s going to be a one-for-one replacement of a manual operation with a robot. However, it might not necessarily work out precisely that way. In his book, Bouchard encourages shop owners to map out the exact process that they are interested in replacing so that they understand precisely what the robot is required to do.

Training your best welder on your robotic setup can help when problems with the weld occur. Image courtesy of ABB.

“Robots are not encapsulated in a bubble,” said Bouchard. “They interact with the rest of the assembly line, with people and other equipment, so it’s very important to capture the right information at the beginning of the design phase. That’s why I created a checklist to standardize the process and make the project systematic. There is a kind of butterfly effect there. Some small bit of information can have a big impact on the robotic application, and it may be something the operator doesn’t even notice when they are doing an operation day after day.”

Michael points to fixturing as an example of this effect.

“Fixturing a weldment for a welder is one thing,” he said. “As a welder, I can hold the part with one hand and tack it with the other hand. Or I can take a hammer to the part and pry it down if I need to and squeeze a gap out of a weld joint, tack it up, and weld away. If you throw those same parts in a fixture that doesn’t do that, you end up giving your robot a bad weld joint fit-up. You are not going to be successful. When I look at a part and see gaps in the part at the weld joint, I tell the customer not to buy a welding robot; I tell them to fix their setups first. Robots cannot weld gaps successfully in production.

“Related to that issue is the tooling,” he continued. “Designing tooling for a robot is somewhat different than designing tooling for a manual welder. You must ensure that the fixture will consistently take the same set of parts and locate them correctly. With robots, it’s important to remove all the variability you can.”

McDonald noted that offline programming and simulation tools are often included in robotics purchases today that arrive at your office before the robot itself. And because part designs can easily be plugged into these programs, he encourages users to check fixtures and other issues ahead of the arrival of the robot to ensure no potential pitfalls are lying in wait.

Michael also pointed out the need to clearly understand your welding procedure specification (WPS) prior to automating a welding application.

“When you have your WPS clearly set out, it’s like your favourite apple pie recipe – you follow it because you’ve tested it and you know it’s going to work,” he said. “That same specification is what we will use with a robot. You have to have those procedures tested before going to a robot.”

Depending on the application for the robot, there may be other variables to consider. For instance, if a robotic arm is going to pick up the finished part and place it somewhere, where exactly will that be? Is the robot replacing a whole process or only part of it? If only part of it, does that affect where and how the part is placed once it is processed? As Bouchard explained, the better you understand your current process and what aspects of it you want to replace, the better you can plan your robotic implementation.

Virtual and augmented reality technology is gradually changing the way companies can look at upcoming machine implementations. McDonald noted that he recently performed a demonstration for a customer in which the customer was able to “walk” through the cell on his shop floor in virtual reality to see how it would fit in the space in question. This can be helpful to ensure part flow will work as you anticipate it will.

Plan for Evolution

Advances in sensor technology mean that robots can now be used in more places on your shop floor. The question then becomes, will the robot replace one full process or only a part of the process that was once handled by an employee? Image courtesy of Robotiq.

Last, don’t think of your robot as a one-trick pony.

“You don’t want a robot on your factory floor that has one job and becomes a monument when that job is not there,” said Bouchard. “You want it to evolve. Any time you want to change a program or change the flow of the factory, you don’t want to be dependent on someone outside of your business. Robots should be tools, and you want this tool to be adaptable to your changing needs because those needs will always be changing.”

McDonald concurred.

“Don’t invest in a system that is inflexible and equipped with only what is necessary for the one application you are starting with,” he said.

With the growing sophistication of support tools for generating robotic programs, as well as supporting tools like collaborative robots, there are more and more ways in which robots can be adapted for fabricating and welding work. Once your team is comfortable using that technology, opportunities for your shop floor can only grow.

Editor Robert Colman can be reached at rcolman@canadianfabweld.com.

ABB Canada, http://new.abb.com/ca

Robotiq, https://robotiq.com/

Yaskawa Motoman, https://www.motoman.com/