The future is here, and Ameritex is eager to take advantage of innovative technologies that improve the quality and efficiency of our metal fabrication services.
Cobots—collaborative robots designed to work with humans in a shared environment—have taken the manufacturing world by storm. So we couldn’t resist installing one of our own.
3 Benefits of Using Cobots in Our Welding Department
Cobots have many applications in manufacturing but are commonly used for repetitive tasks like machine tending and welding. We decided to start in our welding department and have had great success getting our welders to adopt the cobot as an extension of the team.
Here are three of the major benefits we’ve identified to date.
1. Cobots are quick and easy to program
A significant advantage of a cobot is that it is much easier to program than a conventional robot. Any welder on the floor can physically grab and move the robot arm to the required location, then map out the weld as if welding the part themselves.
This process requires zero coding or programming experience. It’s also possible to set up and save all weld conditions so even the most inexperienced welder can quickly run a program.
2. Cobots perform repetitive and monotonous tasks
Programming the cobot to do repetitive and monotonous “busy work” frees our welders to focus on the tasks only a human can perform, like figuring out complex fixturing.
We plan to continue using cobots in conjunction with human welders and fabricators to maximize production while allowing our team members to use their talents to their fullest potential.
3. Cobots produce consistently high-quality welds
Best of all, the cobot produces beautiful welds with incredible consistency. When humans weld a part manually, there are inevitably variations in the weld—especially if multiple welders are working on the part. A cobot, on the other hand, performs the exact same weld repeatedly.
Now that we’ve installed our first cobot, we fully understand the hype and can’t wait to install more. Our vision is to have a cobot at every weld station.
Request a quote for metal fabrication services, and let us put our cobot to work on your project!
