Brazilian company PAINCO produces welded components and assemblies from sheet metal – including in the yellow goods, commercial transport, and renewable energy segments. Recently, however, the productivity of the robots had to be reviewed as PAINCO was undergoing a period of growth and its existing welding systems could no longer keep up with the constantly increasing demand. The manufacturer found the perfect solution in the TPS 600i.

All around the world, digitization and automation are on the rise in the manufacturing industry. Brazil is a major growth market and, as such, is also investing heavily in digital technologies. Rio das Pedras in S?o Paulo is home to the headquarters of Painco. The company has also identified the current trend towards digitization and automation and has therefore incorporated robot-assisted welding cells into its production area. As a leading supplier of welded components and assemblies made from carbon steel plates, Painco serves a variety of industries – many of which operate in the yellow goods and commercial transport segments. The metal thicknesses designed for extreme applications that are used in these sectors pose enormous challenges for the company.

The robot cells had the potential to increase productivity enormously, but the company quickly discovered that using welding systems with just 350 amperes of power meant that much of this advantage was lost, as the seam quality and welding speed did not meet expectations. This resulted in large numbers of rejects and production capacity at Painco stagnated.

MORE POWER, NOT MORE ROBOTS!

Rather than adding more robot cells, all that was required to be able to produce the desired quantities was to replace the existing welding systems. The Fronius TPS 600i power source was the right system for the job: its peak power of up to 600 amperes combined with the transition to the Pulse Multi Control (PMC) process variant meant that the desired results could be achieved.

PAINCO AND PMC

When purchasing the welding equipment, 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 significantly increased. In addition, they noticed two remarkable side effects: “We were able to detect significantly lower heat input, which ultimately led to a reduction in the welding spatter. This resulted in flawless weld seams with far fewer rejects, which enabled us to increase our productivity even further – all in all by up to 65 percent! This saves us about 120 working hours per month,” says Operations Manager Rafael Severino enthusiastically. “At the same time, investing in the new devices was much cheaper than purchasing additional robot cells.”