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" A human welder is less productive, but remains more flexible than a robot, and evidently enough welding tasks require that sort of flexibility that much weldi

" A human welder is less productive, but remains more flexible than a robot, and evidently enough welding tasks require that sort of flexibility that much welding in the US is still done manually. Interestingly, the pitch for a lot of robotic welding systems is often more focused on the difficulty of finding skilled welders, rather than on the potential cost savings of a welding robot." Obligatory reference to the XKCD automation time savings matrix. Most tasks in construction and repair and other low-volume medium dollar activities aren't worth automating because you only do them a few times, and the cost of setting up the automation to work correctly would be significantly more expensive. The value of automation in these domains in quality, which is why you also see it in low-volume high-cost domains like aerospace. If you're going to go to the cost of x-raying every weld anyways, having a welder set up the welding bot to do the actual work makes a lot of sense given the cost of rework.

Closi 3y ago
As an additional note - the cost of the robot is only part of the cost. You have to bring the parts to be welded together to start with (i.e. some sort of conveyor system - decent conveyor is like $4-5k per meter) and the cost quoted there also doesn't include integration, programming, maintenance, project management, M&E, and support. As soon as the payback is compelling companies will put it in - but I suspect the quoted $100k here actually ends up being more like $300k-$500k by the time it's installed and all costs are pushed in. Then there is probably a $30-50k maintenance contract that sits on top of it.
- dieselgate 3y ago
  The maintenance contract is probably very relevant in day-to-day business operations but easy to overlook otherwise. I'm not intimately familiar with this type of work but get the impression most (structural) welders are responsible for their own equipment (and operate their own company/business) or Big Construction Co. rents whatever welder they need from Enterprise Rental Co. The needs of location-static manufacturing (building a vehicle in a factory; fabrication) will always be different than location-dynamic building (structures etc.)
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  > Then there is probably a $30-50k maintenance contract that sits on top of it. When the Soviet Union tried to get into CAD/CAM, they managed to crank out a high volume of CAM stations, but neglected ancillary things like training and maintenance, so many/most of these machines went somewhere where they sat in a remote corner until someone figured out how to use them, saw brief use, then got put back in the corner the first time something broke.

Closi 3y ago

As an additional note - the cost of the robot is only part of the cost. You have to bring the parts to be welded together to start with (i.e. some sort of conveyor system - decent conveyor is like $4-5k per meter) and the cost quoted there also doesn't include integration, programming, maintenance, project management, M&E, and support. As soon as the payback is compelling companies will put it in - but I suspect the quoted $100k here actually ends up being more like $300k-$500k by the time it's installed and all costs are pushed in. Then there is probably a $30-50k maintenance contract that sits on top of it.

dieselgate 3y ago
The maintenance contract is probably very relevant in day-to-day business operations but easy to overlook otherwise. I'm not intimately familiar with this type of work but get the impression most (structural) welders are responsible for their own equipment (and operate their own company/business) or Big Construction Co. rents whatever welder they need from Enterprise Rental Co. The needs of location-static manufacturing (building a vehicle in a factory; fabrication) will always be different than location-dynamic building (structures etc.)
082349872349872 3y ago
> Then there is probably a $30-50k maintenance contract that sits on top of it. When the Soviet Union tried to get into CAD/CAM, they managed to crank out a high volume of CAM stations, but neglected ancillary things like training and maintenance, so many/most of these machines went somewhere where they sat in a remote corner until someone figured out how to use them, saw brief use, then got put back in the corner the first time something broke.