LJ Welding Automation

LJ Welding was recently tasked with building a pipe welding system to improve throughput, quality and safety. Cleaver-Brooks, a global provider of efficient and integrated boiler room solutions for applications of any size, approached LJ Welding with the requirements to build a system that would reduce costs, increase safety, and improve quality in their operations.

By leveraging PC-based automation from Beckhoff Automation Canada in our latest pipe welding system - Pipe Titan, LJ Welding was able to implement a pipe welding system that exceeded Cleaver-Brooks' requirements and helped to nearly triple the production efficiency. 

Other improvements accomplished:

• On average, reduced arc time by 63%

• Reduced weld clean-up time by 90%

• Reduced rework by 10%

• Decreased filler metal spend by 39%

Transition from Bolt-On to an Integrated Approach

The universal approach to building welding cells has been lagging behind. As the Principal Automation Engineer at LJ Welding, Dean Jacobs puts it, the world of welding equipment can be summarized into two words: Bolt-On

With adding  or “bolting-on” more subsystems to the cell, Jacobs says, “Soon, your welding cell has seven control panels and needs a massive power bar to feed them all.” Down the line, this approach becomes complicated as the maintenance for such a design is unsustainable, the technologies advance and the customers using the equipment demand more modular solutions. 

At LJ Welding, it was understood early on that in order to be a key differentiator in the marketplace, the transition to integrated approach was inevitable. VP of Product Development at LJ Welding, Tim Robinson says: “Over the last 17 years, we have expanded rapidly, and now we have hundreds of products as well as many custom, application-specific solutions. We can also tie together multiple pieces of equipment and provide complete turnkey plant design.”

Pipe Titan: The Most Productive Way to Weld Small Bore Pipe

The Pipe Titan represents the effort to move towards a more integrated approach. It is a pipe welding system that provides non-stop hot-to-cap welding with one manual or mechanized root pass required before switching to mechanized GMAW for the hot, fill and cap passes. As oppossed to other automated pipe welding systems where the weld preparation requires machining, and tight fit-up tolerance, with the Pipe Titan, the tolerance for sound weld deposits is large enough that machining most of the pipe IDs is not required.

Thanks to the user-friendly and top-flight tactile controls, the through-arc height tracking, localized fume extraction and many other features, the Pipe Titan also enables the end users to weld more efficiently and safer. 

With welding being the crucial competency at Cleaver-Brooks, the ability to reduce the number of errors, improve the overall welding quality, increase productivity, and enhance safety were just a few of the requirements expected from the Pipe Titan, according to the Corporate Welding Specialist at Cleaver-Brooks, Joel McLeod.

“Welding is a core competency at Cleaver-Brooks that helps ensure the structural integrity and reliability of our boiler room products and systems. We use a variety of welding processes throughout production to assemble and join various metal components in order to create sturdy and leak-proof boiler systems.” Joel McLeod says. 

The LJ team was faced with the challenge of upholding a sleek design while ensuring highly deterministic control and system modularity. The project also demanded the integration of automation and networking technologies to accommodate a high-end welder from EWM, as noted by Dean Jacobs.

Learn more about how the integrated PC-based control technology from Beckhoff Automation Canada helped navigate these challenges in this article.

In the end, the Pipe Titan welding system was able to utilize the advanced waveforms of the EWM and recipe managements on the HMI to reduce the heat input on the work piece. This resulted in the reduced chances of warping and corrosion in the work pieces while also maintaining maximum efficiency and safety.

Interested in learning more about our Pipe Titan? Click here to check out the Pipe Titan.

Incredible Results

With the help from our friends at Beckhoff Automation Canada, and their integrated PC-based control technology, LJ Welding was able to implement a system that has surpassed the expectations. 

The Corporate Welding Specialist, Joel McLeod, on the Pipe Titan and how the implementation impacted the welding at Cleaver-Brooks, “The Pipe Titan welding system allows us to perform tasks faster and more efficiently than manual labor, leading to increased productivity and capacity. It reduces errors and inconsistencies, resulting in higher quality output.” He continues “Being mechanized, it can be programmed to perform a variety of tasks and can be easily reconfigured to meet our changing production demands. The Pipe Titan welding system helps reduce the risk of workplace accidents and injuries associated with manual labor, thereby improving employee safety.”

Learn More About Pipe Titan

Interested in learning more about Pipe Titan and how it can help your welding operations? 

Make sure to get in touch with one of our professionals to help you find the right solution for your project.