Machine factory De Waal has been developing a high-tech welding robot for the production of ship’s rudders for some time. With the welding of small parts such as yokes, using the first test robot setup, the presence of a person was reduced by 85 percent. Ultimately, this allows an employee to run more production. Because the labor market is scarce, statistics indicate that this will not get better soon. In order to maintain production in the Netherlands and to train youth with robotics, De Waal is well on the way in the new world of ‘smart industry’. The mobile robot set-up with XYZ set-up was set up in December 2019. It concerns rails of 14 meters long, with a column running on this of 8 meters high and a range of the welding robot of approximately 5 meters.
This robot setup has three workstations. The first is a general workplace for the robot operator and suitable for nautical rudders, the second station has a computer-controlled turning mechanism for fully automatic welding of inland navigation rudders. In the third zone, flanges, yokes and all kinds of small rudder parts can be welded automatically and super fast.
Now we are working hard on fully automating the welding program for the ship’s rudders. Ultimately, from the CAD drawing, the program should be able to automatically issue the full welding task for the rudder. This has already been achieved for the preferred yokes. Engineer Mark van Keulen: “We were able to install a decent installation during the project. The biggest challenge took place at the tool level. We have now developed a program that can make a welding program with input from a CAD drawing. That was not there at all. “Marco de Waal adds:” Nowadays we sometimes feel like an IT company at De Waal, software development is that fast. Big data is the future. As De Waal, we like to lead the way with the latest technology.”
