Background of This Blog On Special Made Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture:
1. Business Status: Design and production on Welding Machinery / Welding Equipment / Welding Fixture is a “small” industry in manufacturing business, in terms of its total revenue;
2. Among these, the subdivision on Special Made Welding Machine and Welding Fixture is a “small” focused area in Welding Equipment industry: It delivers comparatively lower output value than conventional Welding Machinery in this business sector;
3. Significant Importance: On the other hand, “small” does not necessarily mean “unimportant”. On the contrary, just as welding (Fabrication) plays key role in nearly all of the manufacturing process technology, application of Special Made Welding Machinery and Welding Fixture is critical and indispensable sector in the field of welding technique;
4. Topics in This Blog on Special Purpose Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture:
What is Special Purpose Welding Machinery and Welding Fixture?
The Importance of Special Purpose Welding Machine and Welding Fixture;
Technical Characteristics of Special Made Welding Machine and Welding Fixture;
Put Into Use of Special Made Welding Machinery and Welding Fixture;
Purpose and Classification on Special Made Welding Machine and Welding Fixture;
Technology Progress and Tendency of Special Made Welding Machinery and Welding Fixture
A. What is Special Purpose Welding Machinery and Welding Fixture?
1. Define: Special Purpose Welding Machinery and Welding Fixture refers to those Welding Equipment with niche application aiming on specified customers base, which are developed (Design/ validation and production) based on specific customer demand;
2. Conventional Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture:
Conversely, the conventional groups of Welding Equipment cover those Welding Machine with “Standard” design and large mass production, especially the 3 most extensively applied Welding Machinery:
1) Welding Roller Bed (Pipe Welding Rotator);
2) Welding Positioner;
3) Welding Manipulator (Welding Column and Boom);
3. Primary Types of Special Made Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture:
1) Various types of Pipe Welding Machine with circumferential and or longitudinal seam welding:
Wuxi JACK LHD1500 longitudinal seam back welding purpose Pipe Welding Machine: (Fig.1)
2) Diversified special designed tailor made Welding Fixture:
Wuxi JACK special made Welding Fixture: (Fig.2)
3) Different kinds of Special Made Welding Machine being adopted with specific welding mode:
Wuxi JACK built up Welding Machine with strap cladding:(Fig.3)
4) Assorted types of Special Made Welding Machinery for certain application, especially large project:
a) Wuxi JACK lamp post production use large scale Special Purpose Welding Machinery: (Fig.4)
b) Wuxi JACK longitudinal and circumferential seam fabrication Special Made Welding Machine: (Fig.5)
5) 1st operation machining function preparation use Special Purpose Welding Equipment:
Wuxi JACK GD20 Hobbing Cutter (Small Plate Edge Milling Machine): (Fig.6)
B. The Importance of Special Purpose Welding Machine and Welding Fixture:
This is embodied in:
1. Precise Use: Cater for specific process technology of producing specific product, acquiring on the optimum level of Welding Machinery investment;
2. Render Best Solution: Requisite in output of specialized products;
3. Lean Production: Help improve on site management of non-standard products, benefitting from utilization of Special Purpose Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture;
4. Flexible Arrangement: Makes mass and standard manufacturing process more target oriented and flexible;
Now that Special Purpose Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture is so important, what is its specialty?
C. Technical Characteristics of Special Made Welding Machine and Welding Fixture:
1. Personalized Development: The No.1 trait of these Special Purpose Welding Machine and Welding Fixture, which distinguishes it from the other “conventional” Welding Equipment is obviously its “Tailor made”;
2. More Value Added Time Embedded: For this reason, development on these Special Made Welding Machinery usually involves more effort in designing and validation, targeting on validating process step and longer lead time;
3. Seldom Unified Design: Special Made Welding Equipment and welding fixture differs from case to case;
4. Represent Technical Strength of Developing Company: Design and production of Special Made Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture test capability of supplier, in view of both technical strength, and manufacturing capacity;
5. Higher Manufacturing Cost and Quotation: From business perspective, “Made- to -order” means higher manufacturing cost, and hence higher quotation on Special Made Welding Machinery. This should be considered by both customer and supplier at beginning of business.
D. Put Into Use of Special Made Welding Machinery and Welding Fixture:
So, how to make the best use of Special Made Welding Machine and Welding Fixture, making it bringing the outmost benefit to both customers and suppliers?
1. When there is no Better Solution: Only adopt the technical proposal of Special Made Welding Machine and Welding Fixture when there is no ideal solution from standard Welding Equipment on hand;
2. Being Expert: Customer company purchasing engineer from should be familiar with the strength of potential suppliers, in the field of Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture, when they communicate on business;
3. NPI (New Product Introduction) Process: Supplier has mature and well established development process on development of Special Purpose Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture, covering all of the critical steps, from concept design, to failure mode analysis, to control plan, to validation plan, and put it into practice;
4. Overall Leading Position of Supplier: Supplier has rich accumulation in not only Special Made Welding Machine and Welding Fixture itself, but also experience gained over the years; Supplier use such technical strength as a guide and inspiration for time delivery of the Welding Machine and Welding Equipment;
5. Smooth Communication between Customer and Supplier: Last but not least, customer and supplier should set up an effective communication channel on regular basis for information exchange, during the entire Order to Delivery circle of the Special Made Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture.
Now, with the understand on importance/ specialty and main points of Special Made Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture, let us explore on its usage and category in the next segment:
E. Purpose and Classification on Special Made Welding Machine and Welding Fixture:
1. Function of Special Purpose Welding Machine:
From the viewpoint of function, these Special Made Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture meet the demand of specific needs. Such as:
1) Make beveling on special size plate (Small and or large);
2) Carry out high speed finish welding with one time flow of welding torch in Welding Equipment;
3) Fulfil welding on specific types of workpiece;
2. Classification on Special Made Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture Based on Function:
Judging from time axis, the Special Made Welding Machine can be grouped into welding prepare and welding operation:
1) For Welding Preparation: The corresponding Special Made Welding Machine help improving on welding process, make it possible or more fluent;
Example:
a) Hobbing Cutter (Small Edge Milling Machine), for making chamfering on small and thin metal plate, compared with conventional plate Edge Milling Machine;
b) Rolling Boring Machine;
2) For Welding Operation: The corresponding Special Purpose Welding Equipment carry out welding operation in high quality and high efficiency;
Example:
a) Welding Fixture;
b) Pipe Internal Welding Machine;
c) Roller Strap Cladding Machine, etc.;
3. Classification on Special Purpose Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture based on Its Application:
The Special Made Welding Machine can also be viewed from delivering specific product. For example:
1) The series of Welding Equipment compose production line on manufacturing large diameter longitudinal seam welding pipe for oil and gas pipeline deployment, involving Heavy duty Plate Traveling type Edge Milling Machine;
2) Pipe Tack Welding Machine;
3) Pipe Internal Welding Machine;
4) The dedicated Special Made Welding Machinery for University lab use;
5) Large Welding Equipment for welding Girder in Port Machinery and or Crane production;
6) Special Made Welding Equipment for welding Lamp post or Electric light pole, etc.;
4. Classification on Special Made Welding Machine according to Welding Technique:
The third way of classification on Special Made Welding Machinery and Welding Fixture is the corresponding welding technique it used, and or specific welding seam to be delivered:
1) Built up Welding Machine;
2) Hard surfacing Welding Fixture;
3) Circumferential seam Welding Machine;
4) Longitudinal seam Welding Machine;
5) Submerged arc Welding Machinery for Covering, etc.;
State-of-art Welding Technique: Nowadays, over the last few decades, with the growth of welding technique/ workmanship and computer science, application of Special Purpose Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture also sees rapid burgeoning and trend. Let’s have a short discussion as the winding up of this blog.
F. Technology Progress and Tendency of Special Purpose Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture:
1. Computer Aided Simulation: 3D technology helps simulation and validation of design at early stage of Special Made Welding Equipment and Welding Fixture development, in the form of VDRA (Virtual Design Realization Analysis) and VPPA (Virtual Production Process Analysis), thus eliminating large sums of potential error and risk;
2. Continuous Improvement with Standardization: Standardization is the basis for continuous improvement. Today the big data technique makes setting up library of Welding Fixture and Special Made Welding Machine into reality of rich abundance, which is the first step toward standardization, extracting common points, and drawing successful experience and lessons of Welding Machinery.
