The welding customers, who are always under pressure to reduce cost, are faced with issues such as consistent quality improvement, light weighting (in automotive industry), newer materials, etc. Welding of new grades of high strength materials, used in transportation for meeting pollution norms and increasing strength, are really challenging with conventional processes, observes V V Kamath, Managing Director, Fronius India Pvt Ltd - a leading player in welding globally. In this interview with Rakesh Rao, he elaborates on how the industry is adopting new technologies to overcome these hurdles and Fronius’ novel solutions for its customers.

 

What does Fronius bring to the table for its welding customers in India?

Apart from product and processes we are bringing the technology to measure the cost of a welding seam by means of digitisation and interconnectivity.Industry 4.0 is making production processes faster, more transparent and more reliable from the ground up, allowing even small batch sizes to be manufactured cost-effectively and to a consistently high quality standard. The term itself describes wide scale digitisation and interconnectivity: people, computers, machines, production plants, components, raw goods and finished products around the world are connected to one another and can communicate. This is made possible by increasingly powerful processors, sensors and control systems with which these complex systems can be reliably mastered. All the relevant product and process data must exist in digital form and be made available to all the stationsinvolved. Welding technology plays an important role as an essential component of many value-added chains.

 

As a result, power source manufacturers are changing their focus: while the conversion of electricity had for decades been the key to success, it is now the digitisation of the welding process. In the future, communication, real-time data control, data storage, cyber security and intelligent man-machine interfaces will be the driving forces of R&D. For example, software tools that optimise welding parameters or manage wearing parts will play a more dominant role. Hardware will no longer be as relevant; however, fault-free functioning will remain an essential prerequisite.

 

For Fronius, the digital transformation is a fixed component of the corporate strategy. Twenty years ago, the technology leader launched the first fully digitised power source – the TransPuls Synergic (TPS) – and just a few years later began developing the next generation. The TPS/i was introduced in 2013 and has a high-performance processor and a high-speed bus, meaning that greater amounts of data can be transferred even more quickly – a vital condition of Industry 4.0. New developments from Fronius Perfect Welding also have a focus on interconnectivity and digitisation, which means users benefit from faster, more flexible and much more cost-efficient production.

Apart from all the above, we bring in pride in ‘welding’ as a process!

 

How is the demand for welding consumables and equipment in India at present? 

The demand for the consumables and equipment are directly interlinked with the new projects. Presently, electric vehicle & its component manufacturing, along with yellow goods segment (due to the infrastructure projects that are in pipeline), is the focus and has the potential to grow. Of course there is a slowdown in automotive industry which should take a faster pick up with the government addressing the policy related concerns. I would say it would be good for welding industry if we have a GDP growth of 6-8 per cent.

 

How is your company helping welders to solve some of the challenges they face?

The welding customers are always under cost pressure and that is the biggest challenges. On one side OEM wants reduction in cost and at other side improved welding quality. The second challenge is the light weighting concept in transportation industry and newer materials in general manufacturing industry. To meet the pollution norms and increase the strength, the new grades of high strength materials are used in transportation and welding of these materials are really challenging with conventional processes. 

 

In order to solve these problems, we have introduced intelligent series of welding machines with the capability to weld new grades of materials with very less skilled manpower using the stabilisers. The intelligent machines are able to make a wonderful quality which also helps customer to reduce cost in various forms. Our focus is always welders while developing the products so that welding can be transformed from 3D (dusty, dangerous, dirty) to 3C (cool, clever, clean).

 

Aluminium is increasingly being used in industries such as automotive. How is welding industry responding to it? 

Usage of aluminium in general industry is not so uncommon. Only Indian automotive is not so familiar with aluminium because of steel intensive BIW structures till date. Due to stricter laws, usage of aluminium in automotive is expected to grow. Welding industry is excited to face the challenges posed by aluminium in automotive as it has to do with volumes. Also usage of steel cannot be avoided. Welding both steel and aluminium together has been made easy by Fronius with its patented technology.

 

Fronius is the world leader in aluminium welding technology and for the past few decades we have been helping aerospace, ship building, radiator, scaffolding and various aluminium components. We being pioneer in automotive industry, many high-end all-aluminium cars, internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric vehicles (EV), are welded using Fronius technologies. We ready have huge experience in welding aluminium BIW parts and automotive components including the EV battery boxes. Fronius India Pune and other regional technology centres are conducting various trials for the aluminium components and boosting the confidence of the customers in implementation of aluminium welding without any hassle with technology transfer.

 

Adoption of automation & robotics is increasing across industries. How is Fronius adopting automation & robotics in welding process?

Industrial series production has its own rules: defined quality, defined process times, defined costs and, in theory, boundless reproducibility. In reality, however, there is a multitude of influencing factors that can increase reject rates or downtimes and thus impact on the overall profitability of the production operation.

 

These include operating faults, variations in the quality of the material or the effects of thermal deformation during the welding process. If a fault is not discovered and rectified immediately, the robot will reproduce it all along the assembly line. The issue here is that the robot must be able to “think” in order to evaluate a problem for itself.

 

In developing the Intelligent Series of Power sources, we put the user’s perspective at the heart of all our deliberations. Instead of developing an additional feature for a power source, we tailored the welding process perfectly to the needs of individuals. We also took the entire production context into consideration while improving our robot welding systems. The result: unsurpassed quality, highest efficiency and maximum reliability. In other words, profitable welding processes for all automated series production lines.

 

How is Fronius using emerging technologies for benefiting its customers?

The mobile apps are ruling the world. We have developed a mobile app for helping engineers and welding professionals to easily set welding parameters. We have also developed an app for welding education.

 

The Fronius app Weld Connect helps users to determine the appropriate welding parameters for their particular manual welding application. The user simply enters the power source being used and the welding process, material thickness, welding speed and weld-seam geometry as well as the base material, filler metal and shielding gas. Data can be entered either manually or by scanning the QR codes on the materials using a smartphone. Weld Connect uses this data to quickly and accurately calculate the deposition rate and the energy input, and suggests the appropriate welding solution; there is no longer any need to access the power source or fathom out the correct parameters. The results can be stored, transferred wirelessly to the TPS/i power source in the form of a job or shared with friends and colleagues by e-mail.

Welding won’t be same! It is demanding quality, precision, data and reproducibility - all these with lesser human intervention. Customers in welding industry will definitely face a huge challenge in terms of trained & quality manpower that understand and have passion for welding!