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Years of welding automation doubts? HiSpec Engineering praises ‘ARP’ for ease of use

It took several years for HiSpec Engineering Ltd, an Irish manufacturer of agricultural machinery, to commit to welding automation. And while robot supplier Valk Welding successfully guided them through the process, offline programming was more time-consuming than they had anticipated. So it was with great excitement that they heard about ARP, a new and automated way of programming Panasonic welding robots!

Automation in a negative light

HiSpec recognised the benefits of welding robots for production efficiency. But after hearing about bad experiences in the market, the company was understandably sceptical. Ronan Nolan, Engineering Manager, says: “We were told that we would be on our own after the purchase, with minimal training provided. We chose Valk Welding because they are an integrator. Not once did we feel we were on our own.” HiSpec is now a remarkable example of a rapid but successful transition from scepticism about welding automation to fully automated robot programming.

Lessons learned

After gaining experience with manual programming, HiSpec adopted offline programming through DTPS. ARP was not yet available at the time. “We did underestimate the programming a bit after we received the robot. It wasn’t the end of the world because Valk Welding pre-programmed two programs for us and we were in production. But the programming just took a lot of time and we were very new to it. So we wanted ARP straight away.” HiSpec booked a demonstration from Valk Welding, and they remember seeing how Touch Sensing and seam finding could now be done automatically. Ronan smiles: “After that we all thought the same thing. Let’s get this as soon as possible!”

Of course we still use DTPS, but it is a lot less work now.

Ronan Nolan, Engineering Manager HiSpec Engineering Ltd

Automatic robot programming

Valk Welding contributes to the development of easy-to-use software for Automatic Robot Programming (ARP). One of these software tools is the cloud-based ‘ArcNC for Panasonic’, co-developed as a close partner of ArcNC. It automates seam detection, weld sequencing and more. HiSpec Engineering now uses this tool to program “more than 50% faster than manual welding”. With over 35 licences sold and new features added over time, it is lowering the threshold for welding automation and shaping its future.

Products and variations

HiSpec currently uses about four programs created with ARP. It has helped the company to increase the number of products welded with the robot. These include mostly agricultural parts, such as different variations of tanker drawbars, trailing shoes, dribble bars and a lot of its smaller, repeating components. “We use ARP to speed up the process of adapting programs for different variations of the product”, says Ronan.

Advice to others

To other companies who may have doubts about programming with ARP, Ronan says: “With ARP you will get a lot more work done, and that is the answer that everyone wants to hear. The ease of use is another big thing. We had our own doubts, but so far it has been brilliant: Valk Welding is just a great company to work with and we are very happy with the way things have gone.”
As for HiSpec’s future? They have big plans for further automation, but not until the robot is working at least two shifts.

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