In addition to cutting, bending and slitting, welding is one of the most important operations within the company. Until recently, Metall.be employed four full-time welders for this specific task. Managing director and owner Stephan Laschet, “After one of our welders retired, we however encountered a real problem. It was very difficult to find skilled welders, but young people good at programming were easier to locate. For this reason, we then took the decision to have all the welding performed by a robot.”
With 10 employees, Metall.be annually processes 360 tonnes of steel for the production of a wide range of garden fences. An interesting volume in order to consider making an investment in robot welding. During an open day with a company located in the region, Stephan Laschet saw how the company had automated their welding production with a welding robot from Valk Welding. “If it works for them, then it should also be suitable for our particular situation,” Stephan Laschet thought. “We were able to afford the investment, but we had no experience at all with robot welding. We were also familiar with Valk Welding from technical business journals. For this reason, we invited Valk Welding and visited the main office in Alblasserdam (the Netherlands) in mid-October 2016.”
