Visit all the Programs at www.weldreality.com.

Visit Ed's Robot and Manual MIG / Flux Cored Best Practices and Process Control Books and Training resources.

 

 

Home Page Continued:
Section Two:


EVIDENCE OF WELD PROCESS RIGOR MORTISE, IS FOUND THROUGHOUT THE WELD INDUSTRY:The year was 1980. I wrote the following in a weld report to the weld management at one of the largest refineries in Houston Texas. At the refinery a new section was about to be added. The pipe project required over a thousand pipe welds. There was great resistance from both the engineers and project management to using the cost effective, all weld position, gas shielded flux cored wires.


In contrast to the traditional SMAW (stick) and TIG process used for the pipe fill pass welds in your new refinery pipe construction, the labor weld cost savings on this project with the use of the gas shielded flux cored process, would have been around two million dollars.


In the weld report to the refinery management, Ed wrote:"On the subject of weld process quality / productivity optimization for the new pipe welding applications at you facility. During the the meetings I attended with your contractors and project managers, I hope you are aware that those engineers that were the most vocal against the utilization of the highly cost effective, easy to use gas shielded flux cored process, were the least qualified to have an opinion on this process".




FOR GOD'S SAKE, WHY WORRY ABOUT A SKILLED WELDER SHORTAGE WHEN ALL YOU NEED IS LESS THAN 40 HOURS AND THE CORRECT TRAINING PROGRAMS?





 


STICK TO FLUX CORED WELDER = THREE DAYS TRAINING: It's ironic that as global managers complain about a shortage of weld personnel for their construction projects or factories, that these managers will not be aware that it takes less than three days training to convert a stick pipe welder into a flux cored / MIG pipe welder. To attain optimum training results, ensure these welders receive my CD flux cored process control training program.



NONE WELDERS TO MIG OR FLUX CORED WELDER = TEN DAYS TRAINING : If managers can hire workers with the right attitude and these workers have never welded with any welding process, my MIG / FCAW process control training program will in less than 10 days turn these workers into highly skilled welders that will not play around with their weld controls. The welders who will undergo the traditional hands on skills training and should also be provided with my unique CD "process control training program" available here. These weld personnel
will have the ability for process optimization and should be able to pass any pipe, pressure vessel, ship yard or structural all position flux cored / MIG welding test.

 


Ed providing MIG Process Control Training for
robot personnel at a Magna plant in USA.



MIG welds on a car / truck, or in the root pass of a pipe. Optimum welds
comes from optimum parameters and the correct techniques.

 

On the left, Ed training ship yard welders on how to use flux cored wires without playing around with the weld controls. In the middle, Ed shows 11 old Jesse how to pulsed MIG weld the root pass on a 16 inch, natural gas pipe. On the right, Ed training highly experienced, Imperial Oil, SMAW pipe workers how to use MIG and flux cored on pipe welds

 



 ENGINEERS AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF
POOR WELD PROCESS AND CONSUMABLE CHOICES: In California and other US states, we have buildings, construction projects and bridges built in locations subject to seismic concerns and these projects were and still are welded with the most inferior weld consumables available, self shielded (SS) flux cored electrodes.

Irrespective of what the salesman or electrode manufacturer tells you, the self shielded electrodes were and still are the worst possible choice for attaining multipass welds with consistent, acceptable weld quality on applications subject to dynamic or fatigue loads.

Most pipe lines, ship yards and construction equipment manufactures will not use the inferior SS wires. To attain quality welds they will utilize the superior "gas shielded" flux cored process. Engineers and architects who are too busy to read any books on welding will frequently take advice from a sales rep or from the companies who make the SS weld consumables. This is again another example of lack of process ownership and that's how inferior weld consumables end up being used on critical projects built on seismic faults.

 

When welds that are supposed to hold, "don't"


THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A MOVIE: READ ABOUT THE SELF SHIELDED FLUX CORED WELD FAILURES AND STRUCTURAL WELDING FIASCO IN THE LAST BIG WEST COAST EARTH QUAKE?

It does not matter if you work in a ship yard, at a pressure vessel builder, or the world's largest oil platform, there will be serious cost, quality or liability consequences if management does not ensure it's weld decision makers have the weld process expertise necessary to select an optimum weld process and consumables for the application.

Please Note: The correct process and consumable selection becomes irrelevant, if weld personnel have to "play around" with the weld controls. Ensure the weld work force is provided with the process control training (nothing to do with skills training) necessary to optimize the process / consumables utilized.

There is always a price for weld process and weld consumable ignorance;

[a] the daily weld scrap will be expensive,
[b] the daily weld rework will be costly,
[c] the daily weld productivity will rarely meet it's potential,
[d] the weekly weld team meetings will be fruitless,
[e] the weld employee moral will be low,
[f] the weld failures and liability consequences could be dramatic.

 

 

THE MIG PROCESS IS 50 YEARS OLD,
WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

 

When company managers and engineers don't understand Robot Best Weld Practices and lack the ability to set Robot Weld Process controls, they produce Truck Frames that look like this.

 




An ironic point: A Big Three company had to get these truck frames welded by a tier one supplier because the Big Three managers / engineers lacked the robot / MIG weld process knowledge necessary to manage cost affective robot MIG welding lines in their plants. As these welds indicate, the tier one supplier engineers and managers seem to have the same lack of robot MIG weld process control expertise as the Big Three company.

 

 



2007: Have you viewed Ed's new


"SEVEN STEPS TO ROBOT MIG / PULSED
WELD BEST PRACTICES / PROCESS CONTROLS"

Training Resources

 

 


LOOKING FOR A LOW COST, FAST SOLUTION TO YOUR ROBOT / MANUAL WELDING ISSUES.

Phone / E-mail for Weld Help. Ed has resolved over 1000 companies weld issues. Many weld issues can be resolved on the phone or by E-mail.

[] Are you having robot or manual weld issues that affect your weld quality productivity or down time?
[] Are you ready to purchase weld equipment, gases or consumables and would rather not waste your money?
[] Do you want the best method or procedure for a specific MIG / FCAW / SAW / PLASMA / GTAW application?

Call Ed at 828 658 3574, (eastern standard time USA). or
E-mail ecraig@weldreality.com The typical phone weld weld resolution fee is $375. Paid in advance. Visa or MC.

Plant Weld Help... Ed will also visit you facility and provide hands on, instant solutions to all your robot / manual MIG / flux cored / GTAW / SAW / Plasma weld issues. Perhaps you require assistance in establishing Best Weld Practices or Weld Process controls. Perhaps you would like to take your plants to a manual or robot weld quality and productivity position you never thought possible or use one of Ed's unique, one day, highly cost effective weld process control training programs.

 

 

NO MATTER WHAT THE INDUSTRY, AS LONG AS IT
MIG AND FLUX CORED WELDS, YOU WON'T
HAVE TO LOOK FAR TO FIND WELD OWNERSHIP ISSUES.






 

 

FLUX CORED WELDS AND BROKEN SHIPS?

Over 300 ships will tear apart and sink this year.
Was it the ocean, the steel or poor weld practices?


The navy may go on missions looking for the elusive terrorists and very well hidden weapons of mass destruction, however if I was a sailor on any global built vessel, I would keep my eye on the ship's welds and be just a little nervous about the next great ocean wave that pounds the ship and puts excess loads on those numerous, overheated, poor quality welds .

 

Visit all the Programs at this Site.

 



The greatest characters are found in a ship yard:


Ed has trained welders and has assisted ship yards in the USA and Canada. He has worked with Norwegians, Swedish, Danish, German, Polish, Italian. English, Korean, Japanese, Yanks and Canadians and and don't forget those tenacious thick skinned, highly intelligent, canny wee Scottish welders. His experiences with these hard working, great welding characters indicated that most played around with their weld controls and none of them had ever received MIG or flux cored weld process control training, (process control training has nothing to do with skills training).

From the ship yard experiences, Ed developed thicker skin, an increased sense of humor and a great respect for the welders who give a hundred percent while working in extreme working conditions.

Click here for Ed's new MIG and Flux Core Weld Process Control Training resources.




Visit all the Weld
Programs at this Site.

 

 


ROBOT WELD QUALITY,
EFFICIENCY, PRODUCTIVITY AND COSTS.


HOW MANY DECADES WILL IT TAKE?


1987 to 2007: In the majority of global manufacturing facilities, robot weld process controls are rare, robot weld productivity is rarely optimized, robot weld efficiency is typically < 60%, weld rework is too frequent and few managers or engineers understand the real cost of a simple 3/16 or 1/4 (5-6 mm) fillet weld. (I first wrote this in 1987 and in 2007 little has changed).




Should your engineers be "hands on, or hands off"?



In North America, thanks to manufacturing practices preached from some confused manufacturing executives in Detroit, the auto and truck industry has over three decades developed armies of white collar "hands off" managers and engineers. Perhaps the annual > 20 billion dollars spent in the auto / truck industry on warranty claims, recall costs and rework has something to do with the engineering practices.

 

 


A COMMON PRACTICE IN MANY PLANTS: The process engineers document the less than optimum processes, while the QA personnel document the sad welding results. A question you could ask at many plants. What resources are in place to attain optimum process results that will ensure consistent weld quality and with minumum weld defects?

This site provides a clear and sometimes uncomfortable management message about common global MIG and flux cored weld issues that cost the weld industry hundreds of millions of dollars daily. This site also provides you with many of the root causes of those issues and the cost effective weld solutions.







Visit all the Programs at this Site.

Visit Ed's Robot and Manual MIG / Flux Cored Best Practices and Process Control Books and Training resources. You can contact Ed at 828 658 3574:






The too common, leave it to the people on the shop floor engineering mentality has resulted in a global robot weld industry in which over worked and often under trained robot technicians frequently feel isolated. These technicians too frequently take too much ownership and responsibility for the plant's daily robot weld quality and productivity issues.







While focussed on the ISO standards or the latest lean manufacturing fad from Asia, global major auto / truck manufacturing QA managers have for decades placed focus on finding, rather than on preventing weld defects.


Every day in the play around welding industry, hundreds of millions of dollars are wasted from inefficient manual / robot weld production, unnecessary weld rejects and extensive weld rework and yet the solution is a simple one, read one of Ed's books or examine Ed's MIG and flux cored process control training programs .




 


CULTURE AND WELDS:




2007: ITS NOT LEAN MANUFACTURING KNOWLEDGE THAT SEPARATES THE NORTH AMERICAN AND JAPANESE CULTURES, IT'S THE MANAGEMENT AND ENGINEERING APPROACH TO WELD ACCOUNTABILITY, RESPONSIBILITY AND PROCESS OWNERSHIP.

It may come as a shock to the new president of Ford as he drove his Japanese Lexus to work, to find that the majority of metal fabrication engineers and managers in his organization are poorly trained in the implementation of fundamental Best Weld Practices or Weld Process Controls, also few of his managers have to date shown an interest in process ownership.

Visit any Big Three or Tier one part supplier on a weekend and you will find a robot technician who has already worked sixty hours from Monday to Friday trying to provide weld solutions to management and engineering induced problems. When did you last see a manager or a corporate type hanging around a robot weld cell on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon?

The primary difference between a Japanese weld manufacturing manager and a North American manufacturing manager is not process expertise. Typically the Japanese management actually will know less about production welding than the American managers do, (a scary statement). The difference between the two cultures will often be revealed by the management approach and management participation in dealing with the root cause of their manufacturing problems.


The typical American manufacturing manager will frequently be a fire fighter, forever chasing the production fires yet never finding out why they started. In contrast, the Japanese managers typically show more than a passing interest in finding the root cause of the process or equipment solutions. In many instances, the Japanese manager may not find the optimum equipment or process solution, however the fact that the manager is prepared to spend time on the shop floor and has some interest in the process ownership will usually have beneficial results.

<2007: Anyone who has had to work with Japanese welding robots should be aware that during the last two decades, a common Japanese Achilles' heel in high volume weld manufacturing has been their undaunted belief in ineffective, costly, useless electronic bells and whistles. Who else but the Japanese would build plants in North America and believe that the only robots, weld equipment and consumables that would work, had to be made in Japan.


If the Japanese managers in North American facilities truly understood welding and evaluated the Japanese products frequently forced on them, they would find that in most instances the Japanese equipment and process performance was inferior to alternative products made outside Japan. These managers would also find that during the last two decades, a prime root cause of their auto / truck robot welding issues was Japanese poor performing, inconsistent MIG welding equipment.To read more on Japanese robots and pulsed MIG weld equipment issues, visit the MIG , Pulsed MIG and robot sections of this site.





Ed Set the Robot welds for this Genie lifting equipment, and for the Club Car golf carts.
He also provided flux cored training for the manual welders at this ship yard.






Too many North American manufacturing companies travel this southern route.

[] Spend millions on robots, equipment and fixtures.

[] Don't build the robot welded parts in accordance with the design dimension tolerances

[] Don't build fixtures that will optimize the weld quality and production potential

[] Suffer the weld production / quality consequences of a lack of management process ownership.

[] Don't understand the process control training programs necessary for their employees.

[] Shut down the robot lines, sweep the manufacturing problems under the rug, say adios amigo, then ship the parts, equipment and jobs to Mexico.

 


Weld Quality, Responsibility,
Accountability and Ownership.


IN MANY OF THE BIG THHREE PLANTS I VISITED, THE MOST DIFFICULT
THING TO FIND WAS A MANAGER WHO ACCEPTED WELD
MANUFACTURING OWNERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITY.


Car / Truck: Middle Management. In the last decade the big three have lost more than 100 billion dollars to unnecessary product warranty, recall re3work and loss of productivity issues. How many manufacturing managers or engineers have looked in a mirror and felt a twinge of guilt about their influence on the quality of the products they produce and the unnecessary costs they generate.


Car / Truck: Designers. If the designers at the Big Three companies believed the cars they designed for the last two decades was what Americans truly desired, then shame on them. You all know their products, the only place they look good is in a Wallmart parking lot. The next time you get dragged to Wallmart take a look around the parking lot. You will find it difficult to distinguish that Ford product from the GM or Chrysler product.

It's also a SAD FACT that the majority of designers have shown minimal interest in the welding processes used to join their parts. Many of their parts that daily end up in the weld reject / rework bins would have had less weld issues if the designer understood the compatibility of the weld process used on their components.

Designers could read a book and get familiar with the processes that join their parts. Then again why bother?


Car / Truck: Workers. As the shop floor employees daily walk past the full reject / rework bins located in their work areas, and in the lunch room they read the reports on the annual warranty and recall costs, how many reflect on the legacy of Henry Ford, or remember a time just a few decades ago, when American cars and trucks were considered the world's best.



Car / Truck: Engineers: When Detroit or a tier one supplier had welding issues who did they look to the engineers or the technicians? I spent decades in Detroit manufacturing facilities and at the suppliers plants and could not remember three engineers who had control of the robot welding processes, however I met many technicians that struggled down the right path.


Confused HR personnel will frequently request that the newly hired weld engineer should have robot, press and paint shop experience. This common multitask request in a job description for someone to solve robot welding issues, is a reflection of the common ignorance and lack of understanding of management / HR for the expertise necessary for someone to control and to optimize a major process. HR departments take note, there are no multi process experts in North America and it's likely there never will be.





Wanted. Weld engineer with robot, welding, paint and press shop expertise: There are no multi-process control experts in North America. If the confused management does not know what it wants, and it tells the confused HR department what it wants, will the company get what it needs for process optimization?

 





THIS MAKES THE WELD DREAM TEAM.




THE ROBOT WELD DREAM TEAM? is a team made up of a manufacturing manager, production supervisor, mfg. engineer, maintenance manager, robot technician and a representative operator from the shop floor. Of course for the team be fully effective, some one on that team has to have extensive robot programming and weld process control expertise.


ARE THE ENGINEERS IN YOUR PLANT
GLORIFIED PURCHASING PERSONNEL?







It's a sad reality, that many of the manufacturing engineers and managers involved in welding, have become little more than glorified purchasing personnel. To solve a weld process problem, these personnel or managers will frequently pick up a phone and contact an unqualified technician or biased salesman for advice.

When they need advice about a fifty year old process, over 80% of global weld shops will in the next month, pick up a phone and ask a sales rep.




Review Ed's Management & Engineers Guide to MIG
book and process control training resources.

 

2006: When you find in a manufacturing plant that the manual MIG welders are out of control, take a look in that plants robot MIG welding cells and you are sure to find weld production chaos and more robot weld rework than you need.


Most of the great world war one / two posters on this site are Fed Gov. Posters
available at Northwestern University Library. Ed has of course has
made subtle changes to the poster messages.

 



"MANAGEMENT AND LACK OF RECOGNITION FOR
THE REQUIRED TECHNICAL PROCESS EXPERTISE".

For decades as the global MIG weld industry focussed on "weld skills" rather than on weld process control expertise. This is the prime reason in the majority of weld shops you will find manual and robot MIG weld personnel "playing around" with the MIG weld controls.





 




THE LOGICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROCESS OPTIMIZATION AND LABOR COSTS: Once management discovers the keys to optimize their plant's weld automation, they will find labor costs become secondary.






BEST PRACTICES AND A LACK GLOBAL WELD LOGIC: