Join Gary Kowalski, Senior District Manager at FANUC AMERICA, and Dan Allford, President of ARC Specialties, as they reminisce on some of their past projects. They will go over some of their failure, successes, and proudest achievements in the robotics industry.
What is good fit up? And why is it crucial to the success of a welding project?
Dan Allford, President of ARC Specialties and the host of Roboticist Chronicles, meets with Dave Hebble, ARC Specialties’ Technical Services Manager, to expand on the idea of fit up and explain it to the rest of the company. The two have worked together since the late 70s, with Hebble acting as Allford’s mentor ever since.
You can trace a lot of robotic system failures to poorly fitted parts, explain Allford.
“With machining, you impose your will on the part. You take the part and you remove everything you don’t want… In welding, the part imposes its will on you. In other words, the shape of the part we can’t change – we just have to deal with it.”
Hebble also touched on defining the scope and flow of a welding project before getting started on it. “What is good fit up?” he asked. “Good fit up means something different to each person, so before you start, that needs to be defined.”
Allford added that, to him, fit up meant three things: joint accuracy, fixture accuracy and robot accuracy. All of those things could potentially add even more confusion to the process, emphasizing the importance of defining the flow.
“Before you can figure out which problem to fix, you’ve got to figure out which problem you have,” he said.
Subscribe to ARC Specialties’ Roboticist Chronicles podcast to learn more about the nuts and bolts of robots, automation and the implications of an evolving machine workforce.
Because they deal primarily with physical products, anyone in manufacturing knows that the industry as a whole has taken a hit from the effects of the pandemic.
Over the last 15 plus years, John Stoll has brought together an array of speakers with immense knowledge in the welding industry. On March 23rd, he looks forward to showcasing his 2nd Virtual Welding Symposium with ARC Specialties.
For once I’m not talking about technology.
Only 1 in 20 people donate blood! And the Covid lockdown has cut donations while the need for blood remains high. ARC has hosted the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center “Bloodmobile” donation truck several times last year. Our first scheduled visit for 2021 is next Thursday, Jan 28.
It is the people who make the robots work. From ’83 until 1990, ARC Specialties was a part-time, one man company. It was fun, but I was also very limited as to what ARC could accomplish. So I am acutely aware of the importance of having a team.
The U.S. is experiencing a manufacturing skills gap shortage caused by a resistance on behalf of members of the millennials and Gen Z generations to pursue education in manufacturing skills.
American manufacturing is falling behind, largely due to an inability to compete with other countries around the globe on the axis of cheap labor – but there’s a solution in sight.
Elevating Manufacturing Begins with Efficiency
There’s a common misconception in the manufacturing industry that automation and robots are set to sweep in and take jobs from hard-working humans.
That simply isn’t the case. Robots aren’t here to take jobs from Americans.
As the world reopens, the accelerated pace of automation will likely not only pick back up in the United States – it could begin to move even faster.
