Moving toward a smart factory ideal

Chrima’s most recent automation investment is its second automated welding cell. The new table has a footprint of approximately 8 ft. by 8 ft. It is equipped with an ABB robot, an IRBP positioner with a custom-designed Bluco 2-D welding table, a Fronius CMT welding power source, and offline programming capabilities using Octopuz software.

Machine tool companies sometimes discuss the future of fabricating shops in a way that seems beyond the reach of many. The ultimate vision is one in which all the fabricating tools communicate with a central hub, and a shop owner or customer can see, at the press of a button, where every part is on the shop floor. The challenge is, how does one get there?

Stratford, Ont.-based Chrima Metal Fabrication Ltd. is one fabrication shop that seems to have the vision to succeed in reaching this goal. Visiting the shop and discussing the company’s previous, current, and future machine and software investments you get a clear sense of how the company wants to become an “Industry 4.0” exemplar. Doing so isn’t a race, it’s a well-paced evolution, as the shop floor demonstrates.

Assembly Work Growth

Chrima is a family-run fabricating business serving mainly industrial OEMs. It used to be a primarily sheet metal cutting and welding shop, but over time market demands started to change and the company wanted to stand out in the market.

CEO Dan Christian has worked to push the company into more value-added fabrication processes over the past 10 years or more. He started with an automated cell for loading and unloading sheet on two laser cutting machines. A few years later he was an early adopter of a laser tube cutting machine equipped to bevel as well as perform straight cuts, with a loader/unloader capable of feeding 28 feet of pipe into the machine and handle material up to 10 inches in diameter. Around the same time he purchased a tube bender and a two-bay automated welding cell for mid-sized assemblies.

“The market in laser cutting and bending is very competitive and tough to be in, so we generally focus on more complex projects, which has been working quite well for us,” said Christian. In the past few years the company has expanded its role with its primary customers, doing more full assemblies for them rather than piece parts. “Assemblies are a huge growth area for us right now, and we’re focused on finding new customers that require quality, more infrastructure, systems, and engineering support.”

Since those investments four years ago, the company has nearly doubled in size to 70 people. With an engineering team of seven, the company has become well-versed in designing for both sheet and tube fabrication, which Christian says has also assisted in the company’s growth. The shop has been producing parts for final assemblies as diverse as car seats and receivers for airports and satellites.

Christian has focused investments in the past couple of years on overall infrastructure upgrades, including updating the company’s enterprise resource planning system such that the front office is getting close to running as a paperless environment.

Welding Automation Addition

However, automation investments continued with the installation a few months ago of a new automated welding cell.

The shop uses Bluco modular tables for setting up all larger weldments to ensure fit-up is precise. The company is in the process of extending the use of modular tables and tooling to nearly all of its welding stations.

The company’s original welding cell is designed for large weldments, so the shop was looking for a system that could handle smaller assemblies. The new table has a footprint of approximately 8 ft. by 8 ft. It is equipped with an ABB robot, an IRBP positioner with a custom-designed Bluco 2-D welding table, a Fronius CMT welding power source, and offline programming capabilities using Octopuz software. The system was custom-built to Chrima’s requirements by Autonomous Welding.

“We are seeing a lot of growth on the welding side of our business and it’s extremely difficult to hire welders,” said Christian. “We’ve used Fronius technology for quite a number of years. We were doing internal platforms for wind towers, which were made of aluminum, and that welder had a more stable arc, the consumables lasted longer; it is just a superior technology. The original system we got was quite large with a reach of 3 metres so that we knew we’d be able to cover all bases. This system, being both newer and smaller, will be able to complete jobs faster with a finer accuracy.”

At this point Chrima is running simple, repeatable jobs in the new cell until they’ve had a chance to fully integrate the offline programming suite in the new welding cell, which is the next step in creating efficiencies through the use of robotics.

Rethinking Communications

Of all the developments at the company in the past few years, Christian seems most proud of the fact that three generations of family members now work at the company – his father, son, stepson, and nephew are all involved in the business at this time.

Nephew Jeff Carlin has taken on the role of head of strategic development, which currently involves designing systems, conducting research, and building processes to help drive the company’s growth.

“We’ve been exploring Agile management techniques,” said Carlin. “It’s a process rooted in software development, but now a lot of businesses are adopting it as a project management tool. We have been considering a few different applications for this idea and have tested the process within a small focus group. We found that the process was well-suited for some cross-functional teams within the company, and we also learned a lot about how and where to implement the process going forward.”

Carlin likens the idea of the Agile methodology to the way software is now released; rather than taking a long time to release a full-fledged product, every product is broken into discrete packages that can be released and refined gradually over time. Agile is about setting goals, values, and vision, and working toward them without defining the process to achieve them. If you define the process, you run the risk of your environment changing before you’ve accomplished your tasks and your project becoming obsolete by the time you’ve finished.

The management technique also encourages communication among employees and with customers. Feedback loops in each area are meant to encourage innovation that serves everyone.

“The rate of change of the technology available to us today is very fast-paced, so we need to rethink and move at a higher velocity to adapt,” said Christian.

Several years ago Chrima was an early adopter of a laser tube cutting machine equipped to bevel as well as perform straight cuts, with a loader/unloader capable of feeding 28 feet of pipe into the machine and handle material up to 10 inches in diameter. With an engineering team of seven, the company has become well-versed in designing for both sheet and tube fabrication.

Christian is keen on pushing innovation in every part of the business. “It’s nice to have someone onboard not tied to daily operations,” he said. “It’s also good to have someone who can point in a direction and run that way. You can’t do that as a CEO.”

Unblocking Machine Potential

The next step is considering how to connect all the shop’s operating systems, current and future, allowing all the machines on the shop floor to communicate with a central hub so that the front office can follow production minute by minute. Chrima is taking the necessary steps to companywide connectivity, and it appears to be just a matter of time before that next step is made. As Carlin explained it, as much as Dan Christian is interested in making the company as efficient and productive as possible, “his vision is also centred around bringing younger talent into the industry.” Newer, innovative technology is one way to encourage interest in a generation that understands those technologies better than any before it.

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

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