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Preparing for the arrival of robots in a structural steel shop

With more fab shops looking to automate, experts offer advice to ease the transition

Preparing for the arrival of robots in a structural steel shop

To make automation work in a structural steel shop, the right preparation needs to take place. Getty Images

In general, metal fabricators struggle to find skilled workers who want to work for the wages and benefits offered. Specifically, structural steel fabricators might face even more of an uphill battle, as young people aren’t as familiar with this sector of manufacturing.

Let’s face it. If a student is exposed to stick welding or CNC hole punching in a high school shop class, that student probably will be working on a piece of scrap plate, not an I-beam. Not a lot of attention is being paid to developing the next generation of structural steel fabricators and welders.

It’s not getting any easier with the national unemployment rate around 3.7 percent. Different regions also experience varying levels of competition for talent, such as welders being wooed from structural steel fab shops to work for higher wages in the oil and gas industry. For the moment, skilled workers have choices for whom they want to work.

That’s led to a trend that was almost unheard of until a few years ago: The robots are coming to the structural steel shop.

When most people think of robots in the manufacturing world, they think of them as being used for repetitive tasks on automobile assembly lines. In metal fabricating, most are familiar with robotic welding cells that have dropped in price and are improved in terms of user-friendliness, leading even small shops to adopt the welding automation. Well, automation has come to the structural steel shop floor, too, and the adoption rates look to increase in the coming years.

With that in mind, structural steel fabricators need to be cognizant that dropping robots into a manufacturing setting is not like putting a new microwave in the break room. The proper preparation is required to ensure that the transition to a more automated manufacturing operation goes smoothly and successfully.

Are You Working in a 3D World?

If a structural steel fabricator has not shifted to the 3D world, conversation of adding robots to the mix doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. These files, if properly created, contain the manufacturing guidance for what the robots need to do—a cope here, a weld there.

“The information in the 3D file has to be accurate,” said Adrian Morrall, president, Voortman USA, a Monee, Ill.-based supplier of fabricating equipment and automated fabricating systems. “That way all recommended information, such as welding information, is ready and available to the engineer of record.”

Unfortunately, the welding information is not always included in the 3D drawings because it takes extra time to include those details. The CAD jockey in charge of leaving out those details is only pushing that responsibility down the supply chain, which creates inefficiencies for the folks involved in fabricating the structural parts.

Software can ease the pain of information, such as weld types, being omitted from the drawing. A database of welds can allow the person plugging in the missing manufacturing information to do it more quickly, but that’s really not the ideal situation. Remember, automation should create efficiencies, not create mundane work.

“The goal is to automate the information from the model to the system,” Morrall said, “so you don’t need to get involved in programming or manually manipulating the original file.”

Do You Have the Space?

Todd Cordes, international sales manager, Peddinghaus Corp., Bradley, Ill., said that interest in automated assembly systems is widespread in North America. Even a shop that ships less than 8,000 tons per year has stepped forward in recent years to invest in an automated fitting and welding system.

While the size of the shop doesn’t matter, open floor space does. These systems require plenty of room to operate.

“A lot of these fabricators have put on additions or relocated equipment to create the space,” Cordes said.

Robots require room to accommodate all of their axes of movement. They also need to be guarded with fencing or light curtains to prevent employees from walking into these areas when robots are moving.

If these systems have automated material handling, room needs to be considered for staging, loading, offloading, and delivery to downstream processes. Multiple lines obviously require that much more space.

Adam Moore, area sales manager, Kranendonk USA, a supplier of robotic systems to the shipbuilding and structural steel fabricating industries, said that taking manual handling out of the production picture is something that manufacturers undervalue.

“The more they can reduce the handling of parts, the more efficiency they get,” Moore said. “These parts can be really big, so it takes a lot to handle it.”

The process is pretty obvious to line technicians who are responsible for handling beams with cranes and chains. It’s a slow and steady operation to ensure safety. Parts moved along with conveyors and cross-conveyors don’t require human intervention and, as a result, tend to move along much more quickly when compared to manual part movement.

Do You Have the Right Work?

Most of these robotic systems that equipment manufacturers are ready to offer structural steel fabricators are designed to take on the straightforward stuff, such as simple beams. Really heavy fabrications, such as a 700-pound-per-foot column, would require specialty robotic systems that many shops frankly aren’t likely to automate just yet. Lighter structural pieces are the right fit for these robots.

Cordes said they particularly shine when multiple pieces have to be attached to one beam. Welding robots can handle the positioning of the pieces, tacking, and final welding.

A job that is being done in a few hours with automation instead of three times longer is “significant,” Cordes said. Coupled with the fact that one to three people can run these large systems, return on investment is that much quicker.

Can You Produce Parts Within Correct Tolerances for Robotic Assembly?

In today’s structural steel fabricating world, if a welder has a beam that needs to fit inside a beam, he can do a quick grind on it to get it to fit. The welder then tacks it into place and completes the weld.

With an automated fabricating process, if that part doesn’t fit correctly, the robot can’t really do its job. The robot isn’t set up to grind.

Even when advanced sensor technology is being used and the robot can sense gaps between parts to be assembled to the beams, caution is urged. Multiple passes with the robotic gun to fill the gaps could run the risk of hardening the metal and altering the joint characteristics, something no one wants to see in a structural fabrication.

Moore said that fabricators shouldn’t look at automation as an all-or-nothing proposition. They can approach it modularly.

“We can work it in stages and add onto it at later times,” he said.

If a fabricator is interested in automated welding, but is struggling with out-of-tolerance parts, it can have welders tackle the fitting, grinding, and gap filling where needed, and then have robots take over final welding chores. When fabricating technology is addressed to produce more in-tolerance parts, the shop can expand the use of robotics.

Who Will Present the Vision?

A fabricator just isn’t going to drop a piece of equipment onto the shop floor and tell everyone to get busy. That’s a recipe for disaster, especially considering what shops might spend on new automation.

That’s why a shop needs to include people in the automation decision. They know the processes the best, so they can offer a perspective that simply isn’t available in the front office.

That creates buy-in from the employees who will be working with the new robotic system. Then it’s time to spread the news to the rest of the shop floor. If management clues in the entire production team about the goals for the new installation, everyone understands why the investment is being made and how success will be defined.

“In the installations we’ve made, the workforce saw what the equipment’s capabilities were, and whether they questioned it from the beginning or not, they ultimately had to have respect for the automation because it could do what it was sold to do,” Cordes said.

Who Will Be the System Operator?

This question especially applies to the automated welding systems. Are welders needed to run these lines?

“At the end of the day, somebody that understands welds is going to be a positive addition,” Morrall said. “They can see and hear if the weld is being applied right.”

That doesn’t preclude having someone with no or little welding experience from being able to run an automated line. That operator, however, is not as valuable as a welder who knows when something is not right with a weld. It’s extra insurance against rework down the line.

If anything is evident when it comes to running these automated systems, it’s that operators tend to be comfortable around technology. They are used to working in Windows-type computing environments and show an ability to navigate through logically organized software interfaces.

What Does the Future Hold?

For a structural steel fab shop, robots mean more uptime and repeatability. Workers are safer because, in many instances, the robot is being asked to handle the tough tasks, such as out-of-position welds and lifting heavy plate into position for fitting. There’s a lot to like about the advancement of automation in this manufacturing sector.

But perhaps one of the least discussed benefits of having robots on the shop floor is what it does for the entire manufacturing operation. Employees see it as a large investment in making the company more competitive. Customers see it as evidence of what a modern manufacturing operation should look like. Both contribute to a brighter future for the structural steel fabricator willing to take the leap into automation.

About the Author
The Fabricator

Dan Davis

Editor-in-Chief

2135 Point Blvd.

Elgin, IL 60123

815-227-8281

Dan Davis is editor-in-chief of The Fabricator, the industry's most widely circulated metal fabricating magazine, and its sister publications, The Tube & Pipe Journal and The Welder. He has been with the publications since April 2002.