Robotic welding becomes a must at Burel Group

In the agricultural sector, Burel Group, with 300 employees and total sales of over 65 million euros, was founded in 1936. With three sites in France and one in Italy, this family-owned company specialises in the design, manufacture and sale of tractor-mounted machinery for tillage, seeding and fertilising. The workshops supply 4,000 speeders, fertiliser spreaders, harrows, discs and tines to the whole world every year, as over 60% of the machines are exported.

In Chateaubourg (35), the Burel Group has a 20,000 m² factory inaugurated in 2011 for the production of its machines.
The plant operates in 2x8 hour shifts with the possibility of working in 3x8 hour shifts for assembly, on certain presses and welding robots.

In spring 2021, the Burel group invested in a fully equipped workroom (vapor handling, overhead crane coverage, digitizing) to house the robotic welding cell designed by Valk Welding.

The economical, robust and reliable Valk welding cell currently processes 15 different parts with cycle times ranging from 1.5 minutes to 55 minutes. Among other things, the cell produces a complex welded assembly, a weighing hook. This part, which is used intensively, must always be dimensionally stable and regular, as it provides the instant weighing function on the range’s manure dividers.

“We design our implements in-house. After the offline programming phase (DTPS), the tools are validated and then integrated into production,” explains Marvin Hillion, production welding methods technician at UAP. “The welds must be absolutely controlled with no porosity. Indeed, we noticed that some rust was coming out of the welds. So, we remain vigilant on their quality by avoiding sharp edges and by removing the smallest hole where cataphoresis cannot enter at the risk of starting a corrosion point,” he continued.