Robotic welding vs. hand welding: over 100% more teeth a day
Aside from the savings, how did production process automation influence the effectiveness in your plant? “We make around 25,000 teeth per year. For such production we normally needed three to four employees.
Now we use two industrial robots which make the same number of teeth – the difference being that they are operated by only one person! I should also mention that the efficiency of these robots is very high – a worker is able to weld up to 30 teeth a day, but in the same period
a robot may weld as many as 70 teeth, which is over 100% more.”
“Industrial robots in our plant work in a two-shift system, altogether sixteen hours a day. They don’t need lunch breaks, they don’t take sick leave or demand social security – they work all the time. Consequently, there’s no possibility of any downtime in mining operations due to lack of teeth for replacement.”
Robots take on the hard work and make the workplace safer
Does this mean that the implementation of robots in your company entailed a reduction in employment?“First and foremost, I’d like to stress that we didn’t make anyone redundant, on the contrary – we didn’t have enough people to do the work. Previously we had to man manual welding workstations with additional employees to maintain production, but new tasks were constantly being added and we were simply behind with the work. The two robots that we installed relieved us of a considerable amount of workload. We programmed them to weld bucket teeth and moved employees to other tasks such as welding corners. As a result, both processes became much faster.”
“So not only did we avoid lay-offs, but instead our workers benefited overall on the implementation of the robots. Please note that the robotisation of tooth manufacturing increased the general level of safety in our department. Currently our workstations are equipped in extraction hoods which extract welding fumes. With manual welding stations the removal of these fumes was much more difficult. Now operators of robotised workstations are not exposed to ultraviolet or infrared radiation. The robots allowed us to shift workers not only from arduous and difficult processes, but also from workplaces very harmful to their health.”
“Obviously, there are benefits for the management, too. If our robots are fully operational, we can rest assured that they will perform the programmed tasks. If, as is the case in our mine, the maintenance department requires 200 bucket teeth to be supplied on the next day, we have almost 100% certainty that it will get them. An industrial robot will not fall ill and is present on-site all the time.”
Robotic welding stations provide return on investment within a year
Does the current experience with robots encourage you to further invest in such equipment? “We plan to purchase two additional industrial robots. At least two, because we don’t know how long the older robots from the 1990s will work. If they have to be replaced, we will certainly buy several more.”
“Also, I’d like to make it clear that we don’t have any fear of further robotisation and we are happy to have decided to pursue it. FANUC robots have performed reliably since 2009, they are fully functional and failure-free. Besides, we have considerable experience with robot implementation and operation. But probably the most important thing is that investment in robotic welding stations in case of lot production and high demand for workpieces is very quickly returned. We achieved a return on our investment within a year.”
