Speaker 0 00:00:01 So, if you're thinking about robotic welding, welcome, it is a journey. The benefits will be enormous. The challenges will also be significant. Welcome to the journey.
Speaker 1 00:00:15 Hello everyone. And welcome to the 83, the robot industry podcast. I'd like to welcome the listeners all over the world from wealth, from Porter ranch, city of St Peter's and Dunbarton center. Thank you for subscribing to our podcast, and I'm glad that you're here and I'm happy to welcome John Berg from a SITA automation. And if you haven't heard about a SITA, there were a 38 year old robot automation integration company located in council Bluffs, Iowa, and Waukesha, Wisconsin. Along with his father, John founded automated concept, Inc, which eventually grew into a SITA LLC for nearly 40 years. He's devoted most of his time to this passion by helping customers find better ways to manufacture their products by lowering their part costs and increasing their productivity. John, welcome to the robot industry podcast.
Speaker 0 00:01:06 Thank you, Jim.
Speaker 1 00:01:07 So John, I wanted to get your perspective on kind of what's happening in automatic robot welding.
Speaker 0 00:01:15 Well, um, it is a very hot topic. Um, most manufacturers today cannot find, um, uh, manual welders there. They just, uh, there's just not near enough of them. And, um, the young people quite frankly, have not been attracted to, uh, take up welding as a career. Um, so robotic automation is getting a tremendous amount of activity right now and, and we see it as well as other organizations involved in our competitors, et cetera. Um, uh, as always the interesting part of this is, um, just buying a robot doesn't S uh, for most people does not solve their issue. Uh, there is a learning curve there's certainly, uh, work that usually has to be done for the, uh, on the customer's parts, uh, to make them, uh, uh, uh, work with a robot or be more repeatable. So, um, it, while the need is tremendous, uh, getting, getting, uh, uh, an, a successful install in robotic welding, uh, certainly has its challenges. Um, uh, all the, quite frankly, the technology today is certainly better than it was 30 years ago, but, uh, uh, it, it definitely has, uh, uh, there is a learning curve and, and, and, uh, customers have to prepare, uh, to take advantage of the technology. And so what are seeing with some of these,
Speaker 1 00:03:00 Some of the automation that goes into robots are with welding.
Speaker 0 00:03:05 Well, the, for most customers, uh, depending entirely on the industries they serve, if, if they're dealing in, in consumer goods or, uh, even if a fair amount of the opportunities and automotive, uh, the parts contend to be relatively simple and just a few welds. And so they can be manufactured on a, on a, uh, fairly small and, and a lower cost system. But if the customer's manufacturing components for agricultural equipment or construction equipment, or, uh, uh, obviously a whole bunch of other, uh, possibilities, the Weldman cert are usually larger. The welding is more, the size of the welds are larger. The material that's being welded is thicker. And, and so all of those challenges add to, uh, the, the need to have a properly planned cell. Now, I don't want to sound negative about robotic welding I've, I've made my career, uh, on helping people with, uh, uh, weld with robots and the, and the tools available today are vastly improved over the last several decades. But, um, we also like to be as open with people as we possibly can about, uh, the, the adventure they're about to go on, especially for first time users, obviously.
Speaker 1 00:04:41 And for those first time users, do you ever get involved in like, uh, some studies or some breadboarding exercises for them?
Speaker 0 00:04:47 Um, a lot, in fact, we're asked in, in almost all occasions by first time users to at least help them identify those parts or assemblies that they should, uh, uh, focus on, uh, to start with. And that's driven by a lots of, uh, lots of activities, uh, uh, to be honest, obviously, volume if, uh, that the customer's making a significant portion of their weldments are, are a one or a part number or family of part numbers that's closely related. Uh, that's usually where the conversation starts, but it also has a lot to do with the complexity, the part and, and the requirements that are going to be a part of the welding cell to make it a successful installation.
Speaker 1 00:05:39 So from a high level, are you seeing more clients with high volume automation needs, or are you seeing maybe high mix medium to low volume?
Speaker 0 00:05:48 Um, I, I think that the people that do high volume, which quite frankly tends to be automotive, but there are other industries, uh, office furniture and, and several others that, that, uh, have relatively high volumes. But I think those industries are pretty well aware of the technology and have probably either, you know, uh, taken advantage of it or are in the process of adding capability in that area. The customers that we see today are those customers that have traditionally, uh, run relatively low volume and very high mix. And, um, so that, uh, of course adds to the challenge. But on the other hand also, uh, offers in many cases, a, uh, a very quick return on their investment because they, they find out that a one welding robot can, in most cases, I would say almost all can produce what three manual welding stations can produce. So, uh, with the, with the issues of not being able to find welders and the issues of increased production, it's, uh, it's a pretty simple, uh, financial calculation that, uh, about the investment.
Speaker 1 00:07:10 And are you finding, uh, to part of your task is to help companies use robots more often and get trained and, and keep that training up
Speaker 0 00:07:20 Of of course, I mean, that's, uh, that is, uh, any integrator that's worth, their salt understands that, um, that the sale of an industrial robot is, and the installation is probably just the beginning and, uh, that, that customers are going to need, um, different levels of, of support, but it is so critical. Uh, at least in my experience, it's very, very critical to get the customer started on the right foot. Um, unfortunately we, we still see situations where customers believe they can just go out and buy a robot, like they bought any other piece of equipment or, and, and just, uh, put it on their shop floor and it'll be successful. And, and, uh, Y certainly that happens. There's no question about it, but the rule is that if they can, if we can assist them to get going in the right direction and how they approach fixturing and programming and, uh, care and use of the robot, um, the they'll be far for, there'll be far further down the road within a few months,
Speaker 1 00:08:33 You know, you mentioned book care and use of the robot. I mean, in automated welding, it really is important, like cleaning your weld guns and such. What are some of the things that, that are coming up with, as I mentioned that to you?
Speaker 0 00:08:45 Well, the accessories that are available for a automated welding cell are, are vast and, and offered by several manufacturers. Certainly there are, uh, there are companies that have tended to focus more in, on a way to welding or accessories for an automated welding cell than others. But that the interesting fact is that many, what, what catches some users off guard is welding consumables are directly related to the amount of welding that is done or are in the industry, refers to it as deposition rate the amount of the pounds of wire that are weld that are, uh, come out of a weld gun. And what they're surprised about is that they're used to in a manual situation, they can replace their contact tip maybe once every other day, or maybe once a day, depending on, on the type. However, since the robot is welding three X of what the, um, uh, of what a manual station welds, you're going to replace the consumables at three times the rate and, and a lot of people, you know, they're just, as I said, they're just caught off guard by that until they, until they understand. However, in most cases, a properly designed robotic weld cell will, uh, will service the customer very, very well for hours and hours with, with low maintenance.
Speaker 1 00:10:17 And so what are some of the trends that you're actually seeing in automated welding today? Is it, uh, uh, is, are there, uh, maybe past the consumables, are you seeing a lot of vision inspection going on?
Speaker 0 00:10:29 Well, it's, it's been a topic for a long, long time, and, and there are, there are certainly two kind of levels of adaptive robotic welding. The first level is well known technology. It's a, it starts with a process or a capability called touch sensing where the robot itself acts as a probing system to literally locate the members of a weldment or the, the joint of a weldment. And so that the weld can, can start in the right location, even though the materials may be, uh, causing variation in the location of that joint. And then a technology called through arcsine tracking, which again has been around for decades. And the ability to actually use feedback from the welding process to correct the direction of the, of the, uh, of the weld and followed the scene. Um, so that's one level, very common used in many, many, uh, installations.
Speaker 0 00:11:37 The next level is the use of some kind of, uh, external vision system. And, and, uh, uh, the first, the first and maybe most obvious is to just use a camera to locate the joint prior to even, uh, putting the wire to the joint and starting to weld that's one opportunity and a modest comparatively investment. The next opportunity is to use a real-time seam tracker, and there are various manufacturers of these devices, and this is a system that can actually monitor the weld location during the welding process and send a correction for the path back to the robot. Again, has the technology has been around for quite some time. The use has been limited, I think mostly because it adds complexity. It makes the whole welding, the end of the, uh, of the, the welding torch and the, and the area around the welding torch larger, which restricts the space that maybe you can get into to weld, et cetera, but the tech, but certainly it's a technology that needs to the means and is being used more and more every day.
Speaker 1 00:12:56 And can robots do all of our welding
Speaker 0 00:13:00 Never, or at least not my opinion. Um, uh, there is a significant amount of welding that is done for aesthetic appeal, uh, and, and in very low volume. And, um, uh, we, you know, the, the fixturing of the, of the weldment w is cost prohibitive, uh, compared to manual welding. I probably use the term never too loosely. I mean, 50 years from now, maybe 30 years from now, maybe technology is changing so quickly, but I, I, I think welding, uh, manual welding is going to be around for a long, long time.
Speaker 1 00:13:42 And that's good to hear our systems getting bigger and more complex, like from your like high level view, because we were one of the leaders in building automated welding systems, are they getting leaner or decentralized? What are you seeing?
Speaker 0 00:13:56 It's all over the board. And, and, uh, quite frankly, we, we are, uh, very active in trying to get, uh, uh, non-users into robotic welding with as simple yet versatile system as we possibly can. And, uh, uh, it's, it's a little bit of, uh, definitely walk before you run. Um, it it's, it's, you know, I'm working right now with a potential first time user where their weldment is so large that it just doesn't fit in a standard in a standard system. So, um, they, they are going to, they are looking at a system that has much larger positioning equipment, et cetera. And in fact, um, we are looking at, and seriously considering using a material handling robot as the positioner for a, for a welding robot, or even a pair of welding robots on the other end. Like I said, if, if we can, that we always recommend to a user that, uh, uh, they, they start with something that is a little bit less investment and, and, uh, but maybe a quicker return. So keeping it simple. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:15:20 Well, I liked the idea of using a robot as a material handling. Uh, so you're using a robot to feed a robot,
Speaker 0 00:15:27 Correct? Correct.
Speaker 1 00:15:29 So I wanted to kind of get back to one of the earlier questions that I thought I'd ask you and I, in this comes from, like, you've been involved in robotics and automation and welding for 40 years. What do you see as the greatest challenge for manufacturing in the United States today?
Speaker 0 00:15:44 Well, I'm pointing to one single thing is, is, is difficult. I think a lot of, I believe a lot of people who aren't involved in manufacturing, um, uh, think it's a lot simpler than it is. And, and I think they believe that that, uh, you, you buy material, you prepare it, whether it's going to be welded or machined, or, um, you bolded together and you offer a product. And the variables that come through every one of those steps are, are just, uh, uh, until you've experienced it. They're very, very difficult to understand. One of the areas that I always mentioned to many customers is most cusp, most consumers have a lawnmower. For example, they have no concept unless they're involved in manufacturing. They have no concept what that manufacturer spends just to paint their product and, and we've become so critical of things like that.
Speaker 0 00:16:49 We want our lawnmower to look like our automobiles from a paid job standpoint. And, and it's it's, uh, and, and why, well, because we can, I mean, the, the, the technology allows us to, to, to do, to have that kind of thing. So, so the challenges are just basically manufacturing and they have been for a long, long time. The next challenge is acceptance of change. So many, you know, most products that, that have grown from, you know, an original idea into maybe something of significant volume, uh, started out in very low volumes. And, and, um, uh, so, you know, almost any method, uh, could work in manufacturing the product, but as the volumes grew and the, and the, and the pressures, you know, usually customers or even, uh, organizations that are the originator of an idea, they eventually have competition. And so now they have pricing pressures and, and, uh, they need to lower their costs.
Speaker 0 00:18:00 And, and then there's the whole challenge that we mentioned very early on. Unfortunately, shop floor, uh, people that want to work on the shop floor, uh, are just becoming less and less you. Most of my customers I walk through and, and other than some very rudimentary, uh, positions, which has its challenges in itself, most of the people are, are th they're, they're not young, they're, they're, you know, in their, probably late forties, if not well, into their fifties. And, and, uh, uh, the challenges that these manufacturers are going to have in attracting young people are, are very, very significant. And so, uh, what did, what did they do well? And in many cases, they have to seriously consider automation as a, the only really viable alternative.
Speaker 1 00:18:59 And what about even retaining those good employees like you're right about, uh, about attracting new employees in, but what about retaining these employees once they're in?
Speaker 0 00:19:10 Well, to be honest with you, we think, um, automation, we have multiple cases where automation has actually improved, uh, the, the customer's ability to, to maintain, uh, people in and maintain their employees. Um, they see their employer as being progressive, and that they're always looking for a better way, uh, you know, on the, on our topic of welding. Uh, th th the fact of the matter is while there are some, there are hundreds of thousands of very, very good manual welders out there welding every day. And many of them have made a career at it, and they, they see, they get a lot of plant. They get a lot of, uh, security and very positive feelings about producing a high quality product. But the fact of the matter is they're, they're standing there in garbed up in protective clothing, they're wearing a mask there's, there's smoke from the process. There's, uh, uh, some of which is, is, is certainly not, uh, uh, conducive to good health. And so the, the, the, the it's, it's no wonder that young people are not flocking to become welders, even though a good Walder today, as we, if anybody checks into it, it is, is, uh, is a very lucrative job. And, and, uh, uh, and companies, uh, it's, it's certainly one of the, probably the higher paid jobs on the shop floor.
Speaker 1 00:20:44 So I guess when I asked this next question, uh, you, what do you see happening to welding in the future? I kind of assume with some of what you're going to say.
Speaker 0 00:20:52 Well, obviously, I don't think there's any question. It will become more and more automated, but I think there are also technologies, like, what is the laser going? You know, we, we've already seen what the laser has meant to cutting material and, and, um, uh, flat sheet material. That's cut into a shape. I don't know what percentage today is being cut by laser, but if you compare it to other processes that has to be pretty high, especially in materials, say an eighth of an inch and thinner. Um, uh, so what is, what's the, now we want to put that material back together. What, what does, uh, what does it mean to use a laser to do that? And there's a lot of very, very, uh, good organizations that are working on processes that do that. So where today people might say, Oh, I, I weld that at 20 inches a minute, you take the same process and add a laser to it. And all of a sudden you're doubling or tripling the speed at which you can, you can, uh, you can weld. And, um, it adds to the other side where the parts have to be more precise to do that, but the benefits are obviously pretty easily understood
Speaker 1 00:22:15 John. Uh, I thank you for coming onto the show today. I wanted to find out, is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you wanted to mention to our audience? Well, I, I,
Speaker 0 00:22:26 You know, I, I think there's two or three things that, that we always try to start, especially with first-time users. And, and, uh, the first one is, is a, as much as possible, uh, top to bottom, um, uh, agreement within the organization that they, that they want to use automation in their manufacturing processes. And, um, uh, it can't just be the owner or the president or the senior, uh, executive staff. And it can't just be the engineering group, or even the shop floor, people trying to push it up Hill. It needs to be an overall agreement that we're willing to, to invest and to change quite frankly, uh, to make this successful. And, and those that have embraced that change, uh, they have seen huge benefits. Um, unfortunately we find in, in a lot of situations where some group has been left out of the discussion and, and, uh, it's, it's caused, uh, uh, delays in, in the success that usually we get around those situations, but it, it, it could be a lot better if we just, um, uh, all had agreement when we start. And then there are some logical steps that you go through, what is, you know, understanding what success is going to look like versus what failure might look like and, and, and picking out logical, uh, uh, applications, et cetera, which, uh, an integrator, a robotic integrator, uh, should be well versed in helping the customer do that.
Speaker 1 00:24:07 John, thank you very much for coming on the podcast today. I certainly appreciate it. How can people get ahold of you?
Speaker 0 00:24:14 Well, first we'd recommend just visit a sita.com and understand better what we do, but either use the contact tab on our website or email us at info at, uh, C the ACI eta.com.
Speaker 1 00:24:32 That's great. And I've got an eight, four, four number. So if you want to use the phone, it's eight 44, then four, then eight C I E T a on your dial pad. Today's sponsor is new scale robotics, new scale robotics designs and builds Q span, automated small part measurement system that automates digital caliper measurements, data logging, and part handling Q span picks measures records and places. The Q span system is the new standard for quality control solution for high mix, small batch manufacturing, and works with universal robots line of collaborative robots. So it's easy and safe to deploy in your QC lab. I'd like to thank and acknowledge our partner. A three, the association for advancing automation. Eight three is the umbrella association for the RIA AIA, M C M a N 83, Mexico. And these four associations combined represent almost 1300 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, systems integrators, and users research group, and consulting firms like myself throughout the world that are driving automation forward.
Speaker 1 00:25:37 I'd also like to recognize our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions. There are a web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing, and can set up and connect to CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations, and
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer traction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris Colvin for audio production, my partner, Janet, and our partners eighty-three and painted robot and our sponsor new scale robotics.
