105 metres of efficient welding of chassis frames

Installation and commissioning

"An important requirement, even with such a major modification of the production line, was to minimize as much as possible any interruption to production, which is absolutely crucial for the entire Kögel Group," says Aleš Hájek. The transport systems were therefore modified during the four-day Christmas shutdown. This step made room for the installation of a welding station, which, however, took place while the line was in full operation.

Programming

Since the original line was already tasked with producing approximately 30 frame types (thousands of lines of code for each of the three robots), where each of these types must be able to be welded on any workstation, it was absolutely critical to choose the appropriate approach to create and maintain all welding programs for the original six robots and, in the new configuration, for the nine robots. Based on experience, Valk Welding chose an appropriate combination of calibration of individual stations and robots, use of off-line programming and solutions to eliminate inaccuracies. The result is a system that allows the identical program to be used on any of the nine robots, while automatically correcting any possible deviations and inaccuracies in production preparation and possible geometric differences between the stations. This approach has enabled the added station to be fully integrated into standard operation very quickly.''

Capacity increase

Vladimír Ropek, director of Kögel in Chocen says: "The modification of the line, which was carried out for us by Valk Welding, went completely according to plan and brought the desired increase in capacity, so that we are now able to produce around 80 trailer frames per day within this facility. As the cooperation with Valk Welding has again met our expectations, we are currently working on three other projects that will lead to more efficient production of our frame components. We expect these projects to be completed in the first half of 2023."

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