Welding robot welds chair frames

In the market for project design, VDS Van der Sluis has been a common name for over 70 years. The company develops and produces steel residential and project furniture for well-known brands supplemented with work for third parties. Within the production process, tube processing such as sawing, bending, drilling, welding and powder coating are the most obvious production steps where automation can save on labour costs. Director/owner Niek van der Sluis: "The shortening of the manufacturing time is determined by the welding robot instead of the employee. But in addition to the cost, it is also the high consistent quality that we can guarantee thanks to the welding robots. "In the past year, the furniture manufacturer took a fourth cell into use, which will weld 50,000 chair frames a year for a rapidly growing furniture project.

Whereas in the past VDS Van der Sluis also sold under its own brand in addition to the production of school and office furniture, the manufacturer now focuses entirely on production. Its own brand is now sold by partner Casala, for which Van der Sluis already produces all its chairs and tables. "We are strong in producing tubes and wires, for which we do all the operations ourselves. A constantly high quality is our central focus, from development to production and delivery. We have a delivery reliability of more than 98.5%. Thanks to this quality we also produce for residential labels and third parties. As long as it concerns tubes and wires. We even produce frames for a customer from Hungary, " Niek van der Sluis explains.

Trial with Active Wire

One of the frame types of 2 mm thick-walled tube of ø 40 mm is now manually welded with the TIG process. Niek van der Sluis: "We do this to limit rework as much as possible. However, this costs quite a lot time (money). That is why we have started a test with Valk Welding and by using MIG combined with the Active Wire process. "Active Wire is a combination of SP-MAG and wire feed control, in which the welding wire is moved back and forward at a high frequency. Active Wire makes it possible to weld thin-walled materials faster and without spatter, so rework is minimal. www.vdsculemborg.com