Success Story
Success Story
Success Story
For more than 50 years, Polaris Industries, Inc., has manufactured snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, personal watercraft, off-road utility vehicles and Victory Motorcycles for customers who thrive on adventure. In addition to these popular recreational vehicles, Polaris also has a new line of commercial-grade utility vehicles and equipment.
For years, the 1,900-employee plant in Roseau, MN, used a conventional CV MIG process to weld chassis, steering and suspension components. The company wanted to reduce spatter, distortion and rework that was hurting productivity and profitability. The welding at Polaris is particularly challenging because of the limited weld lengths. With lengths of two inches or less on most parts, the arc is only on for a brief period and does not have much time to establish itself. This challenge requires a machine that can quickly provide arc stability.
“Our operators were utilizing various modes of metal transfer depending on the particular preference of each operator. We were lacking repeatability from one operator to the next.”
Polaris converted to Lincoln Electric’s Power Wave® power source with Waveform Control Technology™. In making the switch, Polaris implemented the use of Rapid Arc™ – a high travel speed and low spatter pulsed spray transfer – that led to improvements in arc consistency, reduced weld spatter, and improved travel speeds.
“For Polaris there are numerous benefits with the Power Wave platform. It doesn’t matter what wire feed speed the operator sets; he or she will always run the same process and we will always get consistency in the welds,” said Cerminara. “With the Power Wave units, we provide a set range for our operators and then they can fine tune for their particular welding style.”
In just the first application where Polaris used Power Wave®, the company experienced a 35 percent increase in productivity, attributed to the elimination of post-weld clean-up operations and rework.
“The Rapid Arc™ process reduces the amount of heat input into the weld and therefore decreases distortion,” said Cerminara. “Spatter has also been reduced translating into a huge cost savings in labor and rework time.”
The improvements didn’t stop with the new equipment. Over a three-month period, Lincoln experts spent four days a week at Polaris training the company’s more than 250 operators on how to use the new machines and the nuances of the Pulsed MIG process.
“We’ve been absolutely pleased with the support we have received from Lincoln – everyone was professional and the response to issues was timely and useful,” said Cerminara. “I would not consider it a difficult transition moving from the CV to a Pulsed MIG process and attribute that mostly to the training provided.”
Success Story
Success Story
Morbark, headquartered in Winn. Michigan, has been serving the forestry, recycling, and biomass industries for over 60 years. From its humble roots as a simple blacksmithshop to their current 1.1-million-square-foot manufacturing complex, Morbark has made a name for itself as a leading manufacturer of high-quality tree chippers, stump grinders and more.
With products weighing in at 56 tons, and fabrication schedules ranging anywhere from two hours up to four weeks, Morbark’s welding performance and efficiency are imperative to the company’s overall success. With an installation base of primarily older SCR (silicon -controlled rectifier) welding equipment, the company realized it was time to explore newer, more efficient welding technology as they continued to strive for maxim um production performance.
Utilizing their long-time partnership, Morbark relied on local Lincoln Electric Sales Reps to introduce the latest technology that Lincoln Electric had to offer. After reviewing the latest Power Wave® advanced process welders, Morbark quickly realized upgrading their installation base with these advanced welders was the way to go.
It didn’t take long for the company to realize the considerable energy savings these new inverter-based powers sources provided. In addition to energy savings, Morbark experienced significant production improvements thanks to Power Wave’s Waveform Control Technology®, allowing them to use advance pulsed waveforms for improved heat input control – helping prevent distortion, as well as burn through on their thinner materials.
Morbark also quickly discovered the benefits Lincoln Electric’s CheckPoint® production monitoring technology – a standard feature on every Power Wave® system. This cloud-based production monitoring tool allowed key welding personnel to remotely monitor productivity of each machine, evaluate individual welder arc-on time andanalyze short- and long-term production stats.
We use more than 75 different welding procedure settings and the monitoring allows us to uniformly control the machines across the boards and create consistency between welders
78%
Energy Cost Savings
20%
Increase in Production
Success Story
Success Story
MetalCraft Marine is a Kingston, Ontario-based integrated designer and builder of custom, high-performance aluminum work boats for government agencies in North America and globally. Customers include: the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and various local and regional port authorities.
Five years ago, MetalCraft Marine needed a welding equipment upgrade. Old machines were failing and downtime was on the rise. In addition, inefficiencies in energy consumption forced the company to run nearly half the machines that their workload required.
The boat-building company wanted to increase reliability, lower operating costs and drive process efficiency. They also had to achieve all of this without disrupting service on its industry-leading 10-year warranty on hull seams.
Lincoln Electric’s Power Wave® S350 welding power source, along with the Power Feed® 25M wire feeder, dramatically improved energy efficiency and production. Today, MetalCraft runs eight machines at a time rather than just four.
“We were able to double our weld output per day – or even tripled it in some cases – because the machines only drew between eight and 12 amps most of the time, so our house power didn’t need to be adjusted.”
The improvements went beyond the new equipment. MetalCraft also benefited from Lincoln Electric’s technical welding support and onsite education.
“Lincoln spent a great deal of time with us, spec’ing out exactly what we needed,” said Allen. “And then when we brought the equipment on board, they spent four or five months returning periodically to work with our welders to bring them up to speed and identify any tweaks that could be made – both in terms of the equipment itself and the peripheral equipment, such as the welding guns. They worked very closely with us to redefine our welding procedures to take full advantage of the new and more advanced equipment.”
“The quantifiable and dramatic improvements were almost immediate,” said Allen. “The Lincoln equipment, and the consulting advice that came with it, probably enabled us to improve our aluminum welding efficiency by 20 percent. That’s a 20 percent reduction in the time it takes to build a boat. Those machines all paid for themselves in less than a year…The end result was less rework, better appearance, fewer quality inspections required, and improved efficiencies as well.”
The utility savings enabled MetalCraft to double its welding capacity. The increased capacity equated to an increase in sales by more than 300 percent over the past five years.
“We have good procedures identified in preset user memories, and that makes it easier,” said Allen. “You can program the setting you want. So, the guy just has to press a button or two and everything gets set up. He’s not tweaking the controls. Plus, it has a couple settings on it that make it easier for a relatively new person to use compared to an experienced person, and still get good results.”
3x
Daily Weld Production Output
Durante más de 50 años, Crown Equipment ha sido un fabricante líder de montacargas y equipos de manejo de materiales de clase mundial. Crown, que tiene operaciones en todo el mundo, diseña, fabrica, distribuye y realiza mantenimiento y servicio técnico de productos que revolucionan la industria de manejo de materiales.
Durante una reciente serie de lanzamientos de nuevos productos, los ingenieros de la planta de Crown en Greencastle (Indiana) necesitaban un sistema más eficiente para manejar las tolerancias sumamente bajas de su proceso de fabricación. Con nuevos bastidores de montacargas que necesitan diferentes pasos de soldadura y ensamblaje, los ingenieros de Crown necesitaban una solución que ayudara a eliminar tanta variación como fuera posible.
Después de una demostración completa de Weld Sequencer™ de Lincoln Electric, Crown se dio cuenta enseguida de que esta tecnología proporcionaba el tipo de control de procesos sistemático que requerían estas nuevas incorporaciones a la línea de productos. La interfaz gráfica fácil de usar, integrada directamente en la celda de soldadura, orienta a los operadores paso a paso incluso en los ensambles de soldadura más complejos.
Con el uso de un simple monitor LCD montado cerca de la pieza de trabajo, Crown implementó el software de Weld Sequencer para que sirviera de guía visual a los operadores en cada paso del proceso de fabricación. Además de proporcionar verificación visual de la ubicación de las soldaduras y la orientación de las piezas, Weld Sequencer también controló automáticamente la fuente de alimentación de modo que se programaran los ajustes correctos en cada soldadura. Eso ayudó a garantizar que todas las soldaduras se hicieran en el orden apropiado con los ajustes adecuados.
“Lo maravilloso de Weld Sequencer es que guía al operador durante todo el proceso, y eso garantiza que cumpla con el orden de las soldaduras.”
Crown no tardó mucho en ver los resultados. Después de implementar Weld Sequencer, el equipo de Greencastle mejoró los procesos e incrementó la eficiencia general de producción, lo cual valoró mucho el equipo de ingeniería de Crown. Además de la gran mejora en la uniformidad de los productos, Weld Sequencer también demostró ser útil en la capacitación de nuevos operadores, un factor importante de reducción de costos.
“Antes, cuando capacitábamos a un nuevo operador, alguien tenía que ser su mentor durante varias semanas”, comenta Dan Miller, ingeniero de fabricación de Crown. “Ahora, lo único que tenemos que hacer es enseñarle a alguien a usar Weld Sequencer y luego darle apoyo cuando es necesario”.
Menor variación entre operadores
Menor tiempo y costo de capacitación
Historia de éxito
Historia de éxito
Morbark, con oficinas centrales en Winn (Michigan), ha brindado servicio a la industria forestal, del reciclaje y de la biomasa durante más de 60 años. Desde sus humildes orígenes como una simple herrería hasta su actual complejo de fabricación de más de 100,000 metros cuadrados, Morbark logró reconocimiento como fabricante líder de astilladoras de árboles, cortadoras de tocones y otros productos de alta calidad.
Con productos que llegan a pesar 56 toneladas y tiempos de fabricación que varían de dos horas a cuatro semanas, el rendimiento y la eficiencia de la soldadura de Morbark es esencial para el éxito general de la empresa. Con una base de instalación consistente más que nada en antiguos equipos de soldadura SCR (rectificador controlado de silicio), la empresa se dio cuenta de que era hora de considerar tecnologías de soldadura más nuevas y eficientes con el objetivo de maximizar el rendimiento de producción.
Morbark hizo uso de su asociación a largo plazo y confió en que los representantes de ventas locales de Lincoln Electric le presentaran la tecnología más moderna que Lincoln Electric tuviera para ofrecer. Después de analizar las soldadoras de proceso avanzado Power Wave® más nuevas, Morbark no tardó en darse cuenta de que actualizar su base de instalación con estas soldadoras avanzadas era la decisión correcta.
No pasó mucho tiempo hasta que la empresa se dio cuenta de cuánta energía ahorraba con estas nuevas fuentes de energía con inversor. Además del ahorro de energía, Morbark tuvo mejoras considerables en la producción gracias a Waveform Control Technology® de Power Wave, que les permite utilizar ondas pulsadas avanzadas con el fin de mejorar la entrada de calor, lo que ayuda a evitar la distorsión y también las perforaciones por quemadura en materiales delgados.
Morbark también descubrió pronto las ventajas de la tecnología de monitoreo de producción CheckPoint® de Lincoln Electric, una característica estándar en todos los sistemas Power Wave®. Esta herramienta de monitoreo de producción basada en la nube hizo posible que personal clave del área de soldadura monitoreara de forma remota la productividad de cada máquina, evaluara el tiempo de encendido del arco eléctrico de los soldadores individualmente y analizara estadísticas de producción de corto y largo plazo.
Utilizamos más de 75 ajustes de procedimientos de soldadura diferentes, y el monitoreo nos permite controlar uniformemente las máquinas a través de las placas y lograr uniformidad entre los soldadores.
78%
Ahorros de costo de energía
20%
Aumento de la producción