African Fusion November 2020

Fronius TPS 600i

Rafael Severino, operationsmanager for Painco, a large Bra- zilian fabricator, describes how his company has improved productivity by 65% through the introduction of Fronius’ TPS 600i welding solutions in its automated welding cells. High performance welding at Painco relies on TPS 600i

H eadquartered in Rio das Pedras in São Paulo, the Brazilian fab- ricator, Painco, uses automated welding cells to produce welded compo- nents and assemblies from sheet metal for a variety of different sectors, including the yellow goods and commercial trans- portation industries. Recently, however, the productivity of the robots had to be assessed because Painco was undergoing a period of growth and its existing weld- ing systems could no longer keep up with

constantly increasing demand. The manufacturer found the perfect solution in the Fronius TPS 600i. All around the world, digitisation and automation are on the rise in the manu- facturing industry. Brazil is a major growth market and, as such, is also investing heav- ily in digital technologies. Painco has also recognised the value of the current trend towards digitisation and automation and has therefore incorporated robot-assisted welding cells into its production area.

As a leading supplier of welded compo- nents and assemblies made from carbon steel plates, Painco serves a wide variety of industries, in particular the yellow goods and commercial transportation sectors. The metal thicknesses designed for extreme applications that are used in these sectors pose enormous challenges for the company. Robot cells had the potential to increase productivity enormously, but the company quickly discovered that using welding sys- tems with just 350 A of power meant that much of this advantagewas lost. The seam quality and welding speed left much to be desired. This resulted in large numbers of rejects and production capacity at Painco stagnated. Rather than addingmore robot cells, all that was required to produce the desired volumes was to replace the existing weld- ing systems. The Fronius TPS 600i power source was the preferred system for the job. Its peak power of up to 600 A, com- bined with the transition to the Pulse Multi Control (PMC) process variant, meant that the desired productivity and seam quality could both be achieved. When purchasing the welding equip- ment, the company deliberately chose to upgrade to the Pulse Multi Control (PMC) welding package. In its newly equipped production facility, Painco found that the pulsed arc significantly improved material transfer, allowing welding speeds to be increased. In addition, they noticed two remarkable side effects: “We were able to detect significantly lower heat input and a reduction in weld spatter. This resulted in flawless weld seams with far fewer re- jects, which enabled us to increase our productivity even further – all in all by up to 65 percent! This saves us about 120 working hours permonth,” says operations manager Rafael Severino enthusiastically. “At the same time, investing in the new deviceswasmuchcheaper thanpurchasing additional robot cells,” he adds.

The TPS 600i and the PMC welding package in use at Painco on an excavator bucket.

Painco benefits from the intelligent functions of the modern TPSi 600 welding system platform, which delivers a very stable welding process.

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November 2020

AFRICAN FUSION