Robot welds complete trailer frames for Hammar

Sideloaders are self-loading trailers where a container can be loaded and unloaded from a trailer. The first model that was developed by Bengt Olof Hammar in 1974 became a success in the defence and for offshore and onshore industry. “One driver was able to load and unload a container without needing a crane. By now we are exporting our Hammar lift to 115 countries, with Australia as our most important foreign sales market. By focusing on one product, the Hammer lift, we aim to be the best in the world”, is how the enthusiastic founder explained his business.

Production of trailer frames to Sweden

Project Leader Andreas Larsson, who supervised the robot project said “Up to now, we only welded the smaller components for the crane system with welding robots. That worked well and we wanted to take this a step further. Until recently, the trailer frames were finished in Australia, our largest sales market. Our wish was to weld those in Sweden, but faster and cheaper. It meant that we needed to be able to weld the trailer frames completely with a welding robot in one flow.”

Which robot integrator has that capability?

“We asked a number of robot integrators, including our existing suppliers, for references in the area of robotised trailer welding. None of them were able to provide references for completed products. So we started researching ourselves and read on the Valk Welding website that they had supplied welding robots to several European trailer builders, including Van Hool, Wielton, Stas, Alutrailer, Faymonville, System Trailers, Panav and much more. I called them immediately for an appointment in Alblasserdam,” said Bengt Olof Hammar.

Convincing demo and reference

Andreas Larsson continued “Valk Welding showed us how the welding-robot systems are built and took us to Van Hool, one of the largest manufacturers of buses and industrial vehicles with 24 Valk Welding welding-robot systems in operation. Everything demonstrated Valk's competency in this field, in terms of size, material thickness, programming, welding process and weld-seam tracking and tracing. Furthermore, Valk is the only robot integrator that is 100% focused on welding.”

Offline programming quicker and easier

Offline programming with DTPS was new to the people of Hammar. “Programming with this system is much easier and quicker than what we were used to. Valk needs more time for weld-seam touch-sensing (Quick-Touch), but that ensures that the welding program is corrected if necessary and that the welding robot follows the weld seam exactly,” explained Andreas Larsson. In the first year, we achieved production of 300 units with a maximum capacity of 400 trailer frames.
www.hammarlift.com