Do you have enough input in the UPSTREAM welded component design and manufacturing process development to have predictable, repeatable MIG welding performance results in the real world production environment?

Or……has big business become too big to collect and effectively retain the applied knowledge that can only be obtained from the shop floor? Does the management of manufacturing organizations today understand all the complicated interactions between design, tooling, and process development required to successfully implement arc welding in a manufacturing environment and have they structured the organization to infuse it?

With all the talk and press on “cooperative” customer supplier relationships and partnerships these days, are you seeing the results in your welding areas? It seems like in many manufacturing industries MIG welded components are being subcontracted or out-sourced. Is this because the organization perceives the welding cell as the source of the most difficult manufacturing problems, or are they just outsourcing problems that they never really got their arms and minds around? Could the welding cell simply be where all the upstream product development and other manufacturing processes that feed the weld cell become visible? Are the manufacturing processes feeding the weld cell running out of control or running outside the control limit capabilities of the arc welding process?

While working with many manufacturing customers we (the Miller - Advanced Manufacturing Systems AMS group) are often brought in after all the product design and tooling have been solidified or completed. We are then asked to make welded parts with what ever inherent variation exists. If an organization would view welding as an assembly process first, the parts and tooling would have appropriate tolerances applied and interference or gaps could be controlled within the process capabilities of MIG welding.

Observing these situations has caused us to look at developing processes and arc transfer modes that can compensate for some of these real world problems that are outside of our control. In some cases by demonstrating to our customers new digital wave form controlled, multi-MIG welding processes, gaps can be bridged, the arc seam tracking systems will function, and some misaligned joints can be fused.

Let me know what you think, please post your comments:

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