The Benefits of Fewer Engine Drives On Your Jobsite.

As the tool and equipment manager for a contracting company, I need to be ready for the fires that inevitably arise each day. However, there is one area of my job that never changes – cutting costs. We’ve tried many different strategies for reducing costs, but one stands out as the most effective. We power inverter welding power sources with our engine drive welder/generators. By doing this we not only get two welding arcs from one engine drive, but we also save on fuel, maintenance, and labor.

This cost cutting strategy significantly decreases escalating fuel costs because we are only fueling half of our welding fleet. We also need to change the oil and perform engine maintenance on only half of our fleet. In addition, many of our job sites require one maintenance operator per approximately 6 engine drives to perform daily service operations. Since we need fewer of those operators, we are able to re-employ these positions in a welding area – saving us additional money and increasing our production. We think this is a creative way to use the same number of employees and increase our welding production. What strategies have you tried?

An additional benefit of this welding system is the weld quality we achieve with inverter technology. The iron workers favor this system because they can achieve two welding arcs off one portable system. This eliminates the need to transport two heavy engine drives, most of our inverters weigh between 40 and 80 lb. and sit right on top of the engine drive. And, the pipe fitters and boilermakers favor this system because of the superior arc quality they receive from an inverter machine, necessary for the x-ray quality welds they are performing. The engine drive/inverter welding systems provide ample power, up to 200 amps off each arc, and we can utilize multiple welding processes.

Another thing to consider is that by using diesel engine drives to power inverters we are able to simplify our fuel on the job site to just diesel, since most of our other equipment runs on diesel fuel (forklifts, etc.). This reduces the storage of two different fuels and the hassle of refueling equipment with both gas and diesel. Plus, we only need to change the oil every 200 hrs. on our diesel welders vs. every 100 hrs. on the gas ones.

Let me know what you think and share some creative cost saving techniques you’ve tried…Post your comments and questions.

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