African Fusion March 2023

Cover story: ESAB

African Fusion talks to ESAB SA product manager Keith Saunders about InduSuite WeldCloud, ESAB’s collection of digital solutions for enhanced weld quality and productivity, reduced downtime, and simpler automatic process documentation. WeldCloud: the complete digital workflow solution for fabricators

I nduSuite from ESAB is a portfolio of digi tal solutions developed to help ESAB customers to improve efficiency and weld quality at every step of the fabrication process, from plate to finished product. In countries across the world the soft ware is being used with ESAB and non ESAB welding equipment to improve performance: an Italian manufacturer of agricultural equipment has gained 6 000 additional hours of welding time; a Finnish manufacturer of mining equipment in creased arc-on time to 20% – about double the industry average; and a Brazilian pet rochemical giant has saved thousands of hours of engineering time while improving weld quality and reducing risk. InduSuite solutions include WeldCloud Productivity, WeldCloud Fleet and Weld Cloud Notes, along with data analytics solutions for plate nesting and cutting and offline robot programming. The apps help users to: • Raise welding quality by developing and ensuring compliance with procedures, standards and regulations. • Raise productivity by tracking and ana

WeldCloud productivity benefits include improved productivity, faster responsiveness, easy deployment and investment justification.

In terms of hardware, it is also very easy to install. The latest ESAB’s digital power sources have the option of been ordered with the WeldCloud system installed. For older ESAB and non-ESAB machines, there is an external device called a Universal Con nector, which gets installed onto the weld ing machine. These units can be connected to the Wi-Fi and be ready to capture welding data within five minutes. “So it doesn’t matter how old the welding machines being used are or if a fabricator has a mix of brands, the same data can be collected and the quality can be raised across the organisation,” Saunders explains. “We are currently setting the system up on a robot fitted with the ESAB Aristo 500ix,” he adds. “And on the industrial side, we have a system on trial at Howden and we are installing trial systems at fabrication facilities such as K5 Heavy Engineering; power and piping specialist, Steinmüller; and National Stainless Steel Centre,” he informs African Fusion . “It’s a new system being rigorously tested and we are positive customers will see this as a successful tool in their weld ing and cutting shops. Via efficiency and productivity gains, the investment is well worth it,” Saunders concludes. A case study from ADR Group WeldCloud Productivity has helped an axle supplier in the agricultural industry to

lysing welder productivity, quality and consumables usage. • Maintain fleet equipment in optimal working condition through machine health monitoring. • Assure welder accountability and oversight by tracking key welding and cutting progress. “We can offer solutions for fabricators from small workshops with a few welding machines to large companies with fleets of equipment on multiple sites. WeldCloud software can be downloaded and run on a laptop, tablet, smartphone, or any de vice with a Wi-Fi connection and a web browser,” says Keith Saunders, prod uct manager for ESAB South Africa. “It enables supervisors to see production rates, arc on time, wire usage and a host of other welding parameters more easily than ever before. The data gets downloaded onto a supervisor’s device, who can immediately see, via easily accessible charts, what all the machines are doing; how many welds are being completed; whether they have been done according to the Welding Procedure Specification, and much more. WeldCloud helps supervisors to see exactly what is going on across all shop floors of the operation and it provides much better control over the quality and consistency of welding,” Saunders says.

WeldCloud software can be downloaded and run on a laptop, tablet, smartphone, or any device with a Wi-Fi connection and a web browser.

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March 2023

AFRICAN FUSION