STEEL FABRICATION
the search was on to get one that fitted the bill for Katmex at its vast 25,000-sq m , newly re-roofed and cladded factory in Stockton .
Engineering and maintenance manager John Donaldson said the benefits of a cobot shone through when he started looking at options to replace the old equipment , which was not only becoming unreliable , but took up excessive space and was increasingly difficult to source spare parts for .
He told Tees Business : “ When I started looking at cobots , they seemed the obvious option .
“ The model we ’ ve chosen is a lot more simplistic to programme – you can grab the welding head of the robot and move it around , basically mimicking what a manual welder would do . Those movements can be memorised , then run as a programme , repeatably and consistently .
“ In addition , they ’ re very user-friendly and are about a third of the price of a full welding robot , but they fit into the environment in a much more flexible way in that you don ’ t need huge enclosures and vast extraction systems .”
Andy Hegarty , production supervisor for weld and fabrication , was among a team who travelled to Huntingdon on a fact-finding mission to see the Lorch SpeedPulse machine in action – and he liked what he saw .
He said : “ It put down weld and produced parts faster , gave a stronger weld and with hardly any cleaning up afterwards .
“ We looked at a few different products that are currently available , but the clincher was this one had a seam tracking function , which meant the part didn ’ t have to be in the exact position all the time – it would find it and if there was a slight variation , it compensated and put the weld down in the right place .
“ Other firms were telling us that sort of thing was the future , but this already did it .”
Two traditional welding robots were replaced by the Lorch cobot , which went live in early January .
And according to John , it ’ s so far , so good .
He said : “ I was slightly dubious we wouldn ’ t be able to replicate what a full traditional welding robot solution was able to offer but having seen how simple and fast it is to programme , and how accurate and repeatable it is as a process , I ’ m extremely impressed to say the least .
“ I can immediately see other product groups we can utilise this process for – and I ’ m starting to wonder about other applications for a cobot within Katmex .
“ The thing that ’ s really impressed me is how collaborative it is with the human – how they work together . It simplifies the whole process and gives you more control .”
Production engineer Nathan Wall was among those tasked with introducing the new kit .
He said : “ The main benefit I ’ ve seen is how efficient the machine is .
“ If you compare it to manual welding , the difference is amazing . When this came in , the speed of it and ease of programming took me aback a bit with how impressive it was – it shows that the company is thinking towards the future , future-proofing itself .”
Engineering technician Craig Weddle was seconded from the CNC ( computer numerically controlled ) section to fabrication and , subsequently , the cobot project .
Having completed cobot operator training , he ’ s now programming it – and is a big fan .
He said : “ I was predominantly a CNC operator , so I cross-trained into weld . I ’ d never welded and never used a cobot but I
Impressed – Colleagues Craig Weddle , Andy Hegarty and Kane Reeves with Katmex ’ s latest engineering investment .
was up for the challenge .
“ It doesn ’ t take long to pick it up – a lot of it is self-explanatory and very collaborative . You can be fully hands-on with it .”
Senior production supervisor Steve Cross admits that in his 19 years with the company , the introduction of cobots is one of the most exciting developments .
He said : “ We carried out process analysis and found we could significantly improve on the output of ‘ parts out ’ versus manual or the old robots , so it was a bit of a nobrainer really – and high-quality results can be guaranteed too .”
The quality team is also happy , with senior quality engineer Owen Haswell and quality technician Kane Reeves impressed with what the new machine produces .
Kane said : “ The quality of the weld is very good , it ’ s more efficient and the repeatability of the process can be guaranteed on each part that comes off , with no re-work required .”
But according to John Donaldson , it ’ s an investment in hardware and staff skills .
He said : “ With Craig , for example , we ’ ve taken an individual and developed his skills to not only improve himself , but also to improve us as a business .
“ We ’ ve got a dual-skilled individual who can work across CNC and fabrication – that flexibility is what we need as a business going forward .
“ The programming role Craig now has , that sort of digital-type work , is what the workforce of tomorrow is looking for .
“ We now have these development opportunities not just within someone ’ s current role , but within other areas of the business .”
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