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Done-in-one meets structural fabrication

System automates programming, plate and beam handling, and welding

A shuttle system lifts a cut beam and places it in hydraulic clamps for welding.

Structural fabricators live with three big challenges: working with good information, increasing fabrication speed, and finding technical talent. Software that uses building information modeling, or BIM, helps address the first challenge. In its ideal form, a BIM file entails every piece of information needed to make a building, though few detailing engineers take the time to specify every weld.

Moreover, the latest machines can mark layout and other identifiers on workpieces. No longer must workers manually perform layout. When a piece emerges from a machine, they know where the piece goes, and how it mates with other members.

Regarding the second challenge, the speed of fabrication, most plates and beams in a structural fab shop don’t spend time on a worktable or progressing through a pass-through machine. Traditionally, all components spend more time moving and sitting between operations.

The third challenge entails the lack of skilled labor like welders, especially those certified to structural welding codes. It’s one reason that robotic welding has entered the structural fabrication arena in recent years.

In one form or another, automation has helped structural fabricators overcome all three of these challenges—but can automation extend even further into the shop? Many outside manufacturing think automation has taken over the factory floor completely: All a plant needs now are a few people to monitor all the robots, right? Most of the manufacturing world isn’t quite there yet; high product mixes and variable demand complicate matters.

In recent years, though, the structural fabrication arena has gotten closer to that popular perception of total factory automation. Case in point: At EuroBLECH in October and at FABTECH® in November, Voortman showed what the company dubs The Fabricator, an automated beam and plate cutting and welding system. In it, plate and beam cutting, as well as welding, is entirely automated. It’s a done-in-one concept expanded to the entire shop floor.

Like most technology in metal fabrication these days, it starts with software. The detailing office creates 3-D BIM files, which are then exported into StruM.I.S., the structural fabrication enterprise resource planning platform from Exton, Pa.-based AceCad Software Inc. AceCad’s BIMReview checks the weld information in the BIM file and corrects or adds to that welding information if necessary. Of course, a welding technician can review the data to ensure all is good to go.

“It takes the legwork out of manually inputting weld data,” said U.K.-based Simon Inman, AceCad’s technical director. “The software interprets the [weld] data and corrects it with a series of algorithms.”

“There is no programming,” said Adrian Morrall, president of Voortman USA Corp. in Manteno, Ill. “The software analyzes every connection.”

After the weld information is checked, the model is exported to CAM, from which the CNC and XML files are distributed to the correct machines on the floor. According to the company, every machine in the system connects to a central production database so, in essence, everything operates on the same page. No one machine is an island.

A handling robot lifts cut plate from a conveyor and positions it for welding.

The production starts at the beam and plate processing machines. The beam line starts drilling and cutting, automatically removing remnants. Beams that are ready for assembly transfer from a roller conveyor onto specialized cross transports that rotate and position the beams for welding and assembly.

Simultaneously, a nest of parts is sent to the plasma plate cutting machine, which processes parts to be welded onto the beam. The plasma system is automatically loaded and unloaded by a plate sorting system. Grippers moving on an overhead gantry move in X, Y, and Z. They pick pieces from nests and place them into a storage magazine. The grippers then pick up and remove the remaining skeleton.

When a beam is ready for the plates, the grippers retrieve the needed pieces from the magazine and place them on a conveyor. The plates are sent through two grinding machines to remove dross and burrs, and then through a scanner that identifies the parts, so the automated system knows which plates are where.

After the beam is hydraulically clamped into place, handling robots measure the front and back to determine the beam’s exact position in space. Meanwhile, welding robots measure the web and flange sections, using weld-wire touch sensing. They compare the real part to the one in the software and make adjustments to suit. A shuttle then takes the plate to the welding area, where a handling robot positions the plate on the beam, and the welding robots tack and weld the plates in place. The workpiece is then sent to an offload area for completed beams, ready to be shipped to the construction site.

“This is the fully automated shop,” Morrall said. “You have two or three people managing the automation, where before it would have required 30 people.”

Images courtesy of Voortman USA Corp., 450 S. Spruce St., Unit F, Manteno IL 60950, 815-468-6300, www.voort mancorp.com.

The handling robot positions plate on the beam as the welding robot tacks the component in place.

About the Author
The Fabricator

Tim Heston

Senior Editor

2135 Point Blvd

Elgin, IL 60123

815-381-1314

Tim Heston, The Fabricator's senior editor, has covered the metal fabrication industry since 1998, starting his career at the American Welding Society's Welding Journal. Since then he has covered the full range of metal fabrication processes, from stamping, bending, and cutting to grinding and polishing. He joined The Fabricator's staff in October 2007.