Are you ready to employ a cobot?

Collaborative robots might help some job shops with their welding bottleneck. Vectis Automation

Walking through the welding area of FABTECH 2021 in Chicago in mid-September, you would find it difficult not to notice all of the collaborative robots (cobots) that have been incorporated into welding cells. You had the early trailblazers in this space like Universal Robots, but you also had the old-school robotic companies with their own versions of the cobotic-based welding cells. The day of humans working side-by-side with cobots in the welding department is here.

Programming is easier. Officials at Vectis Automation, a partner of Universal Robots, believe that a person with no prior programming experience can get one of their cells up and welding withing 10 minutes. It’s just a matter of teaching the robot where it needs to be, either by inputting the specific coordinates or teaching it by simply moving the cobot into place. Welding templates also help the programmer get things going.

Is this going to replace an experienced welder? Probably not. But it might free up a welder to tackle more difficult jobs. Honestly, what welder wants to make the same basic welds repeatedly over a shift?

A cobotic weld cell gives a shop the chance to put a nonwelder on the job to tackle these simple jobs. They can be instructed what to look for and then tend to the cell, moving workpieces in and out of the fixture, as the cobot does its job.

A more skilled technician might be able to tend to the cobotic weld cell while doing something else, such as grinding. Perhaps the biggest challenge for a fabricator is trying to figure out how best to use this sort of welding automation.

If you wonder how you might incorporate a cobot into your welding operation, check out a Universal Robots and Vectis Automation webinar on Tuesday, Oct. 19, at 2 p.m. Eastern time/1 p.m. Central time. Stuart Shepherd, vertical development director for the Americas, Universal Robots, and Josh Pawley, founding partner, Vectis Automation, will discuss three keys to successfully implementing a cobot-based welding cell. The presenters will look at the return on investment for such a cell and case studies involving metal fabricators.

For more information and to register, visit here.