Doubling production speed with Yaskawa welding robots

At Vanderscheuren in Diksmuide, West Flanders, two Yaskawa welding robots provide 16-hour welding of custom products 5 days a week. The robots were delivered complete with manipulator, fencing, extraction, welding equipment and track. Installation was provided by VSE Technologies.

Yaskawa partner VSE Technologies of Heist-op-den-Berg had already performed work for Vanderscheuren, executive manufacturer of custom metalwork. This client had a number of older robotic installations of a different brand with obsolete ESAB welding sources. VSE "upgraded" one of the installations with new welding equipment. Due to the age of the three existing welding robots at Vanderscheuren, a second-hand Yaskawa welding robot followed to replace the second robot. VSE equipped it with new welding equipment and put it into operation. A completely new installation was chosen for the third robot.

Natural Yaskawa

Until then, Vanderscheuren via the principle of a fixed worktable on which they mounted a piece by hand, which was welded by the robot and only when the robot was finished would they take the piece off and a new piece was placed whereupon the robot re-entered its process. On VSE's advice, the customer decided to purchase an entirely new installation where the third obsolete robot was also replaced. "We did the same with a Yaskawa installation, of course. The best!" said Kristof Vleugels, Sales Engineer at VSE Technologies.

Production speed doubled

The new facility has a large manipulator with two work stations that place pieces of up to 5 meters between them, allowing the operator to load while the robot is welding. The operator is protected from the arc of light during loading and unloading by a shield between the two stations. Station changing is done around a horizontal axis and is fully integrated into the robot program. The robot is on a track, also from Yaskawa so that the entire 5 meters can be reached smoothly. With this solution, the production speed could be doubled.

Vanderscheuren makes oil tanks that are built into large industrial loom machines and keep the spindles oiled. An oil tank is a square tube no larger than 20 cm in diameter. "They work on a fixed order per day, so they have to be able to deliver a certain number of pieces per day. The last time I talked to them, they had a four-day head start in production," Vleugels says.

Up to 5 meters in length

The installation consists of the robot, manipulator and track as well as fencing and extraction, all installed by VSE Technologies. The whole thing was first built up at VSE with support from Yaskawa there. Vanderscheuren was going to expand and had built a new building. "We moved the occasional robot from the old building to the new one," Vleugels continued. "There the installations are next to each other and use the same extraction." The first Yaskawa robot has a small turntable but in the manipulator of the new installation, it can span up to 5 meters.

This length is sometimes necessary because the oil tanks are 12 different lengths. The longer the oil tank, the more welding is on it. The program for the shorter oil tanks can be taken for the longer lengths, requiring only the length to be adjusted. In the controller, the 12 lengths were programmed by VSE while the entire Functional Safety Unit (FSU) was programmed by a Yaskawa robot engineer. Before commissioning the installation, the robot operators from Vanderscheuren spent a few days at the Yaskawa Benelux Academy for extensive training.

Extensive machinery

In the new production hall of Vanderscheuren stand alongside the two Yaskawa robot installations (the third obsolete robot has since been scrapped) cutting machines, bending machines, and more in an extensive machine park. For now, they will not automate further. Maintenance of the robot plants will be performed by VSE Technologies so that the current accelerated production can be maintained.