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Robot welding cell forms the complete picture for Vanhoucke Machine Engineering
Vanhoucke Machine Engineering is a Belgian family business that was founded thirty years ago. Located in Moorslede in West Flanders, the company has now become a global player within their niche market. The company produces agricultural machinery that it designs itself, from environmentally friendly weed control in a thermal / mechanical way to harvesting and processing machines for vegetables. Recently, a Yaskawa ArcWorld robot welding cell was added to Vanhoucke's machinery to help make the increasing production numbers possible.
A real family business
Today Vanhoucke Machine Engineering consists of approximately 15 people. The eldest son Steven joined the company a few years ago, followed by his brother Maarten. Last year their sister also joined: a real family business. A family business that is doing very well, which meant the need to expand. The production area has more than doubled recently and the machinery has also been thoroughly adapted.
Engineering Manager Maarten Vanhoucke is mainly concerned with the software, programming the machines and setting up the various machines and the welding robot. He also takes care of solving problems in the machinery and acts as an IT service. A very varied range of tasks, inherent to working within a family business.
The idea of purchasing a robot welding cell started a few years ago when Vanhoucke bought a few old handling robots from the bankruptcy of another company. Two years ago, Maarten converted one of those robots into a welding robot, purely to test the concept as the model of this robot was not suitable for it. However, this made it clear that a welding robot would offer a solution for the many small series of 30 to 50 items with a lot of variation. With this in mind, Vanhoucke contacted all robot builders and cobots were discussed several times. After a cobot had been tested, it was decided that this was not the right product for the company. Vanhoucke had also discussed cobots with Yaskawa and in the meantime saw that they had several other nice products: the ArcWorld welding cell stood out.
The complete picture
“Yaskawa was the company that answered the fastest,” says Maarten Vanhoucke. “It is very pleasant when you send something that you receive a reply with the information within a day. That really appealed to all of us. ” Subsequently, Vanhoucke paid a visit to the company Polet, which operate a Yaskawa welding cell, where it became clear that this was what they were looking for. “The complete picture was right,” says Vanhoucke. The ArcWorld cell at Polet is more compact, Vanhoucke opted for the largest model.
The ArcWorld cell was delivered in November 2020 and after a few adjustments it is now fully operational in production. A wide variety of products are processed in the welding cell. Due to the increasing demand, the agricultural machines are being produced in ever larger quantities and all parts are welded in the ArcWorld cell. Everything is first prepared on the welding table by a welder and then placed in the robot cell to be fully welded.
A push of the button
All welding programs have now been stored in the robot cell. In theory, this would allow a holiday worker without welding training to let the welding cell do the work at the push of a button. Every part comes back every year, so with all the welding programs saved, it should be really easy to start welding the same parts again next year.
“It was really necessary to renew the machinery. We are automating to relieve the end user. It was time to look at ourselves, how much more we can do with the staff we have now, expand our production a lot without having to hire more people, ”Maarten Vanhoucke continues. “Good personnel are very difficult to find and costly. It is not easy, especially in the welding department. On the one hand, the robot can handle the work and on the other, we create a more pleasant working environment for the welders. In this way we are more productive overall. ”
Automation step
This automation step is sufficient for the time being. The company is still in the process of getting to know all the new machines better and deploying all the programs for the various components. It started with the new premises and then a CNC drilling line, CNC cutting line and more, including the Yaskawa welding cell. “The ArcWorld principle is: you have everything. The torch, cleaner, measurement. The people who work around it are not bothered by the robot when it is welding. The overall picture was good, ”says Maarten Vanhoucke. “The advantage of the larger cell is that we can see very well what the robot is doing. We have also put in a camera with a screen next to it that you can follow the robot well. " There is a signal column on the cell: when the robot is welding it is orange, with an error message red and when the welded product is ready, it is green.
Vanhoucke produces dozens of products with hundreds of configurations, a very varied production. It is a specific niche market with seasonal items, which means that it is sometimes all hands on deck and it can also just be that the welding cell is standing still for a few weeks. However, due to the good preparation and programming, all machines can be used immediately when needed.
