WELDCLOUD FLEET, A CLOUD-BASED DIGITAL APPLICATION HELPS SERVICE MANAGERS IMPROVE WELDING EQUIPMENT UPTIME

Newest Application in the suite of ESAB Digital Solutions, which includes WeldCloud Productivity for production managers and WeldCloud Notes for engineers and quality personnel.

ESAB Welding & Cutting Products has introduced WeldCloud Fleet, a cloud-based application designed to manage a fleet of welding equipment across one or multiple locations. Ideal for service and maintenance managers with larger fleets of welding equipment, WeldCloud Fleet keeps the fleet working at optimal productivity levels by enabling users to:

• Manage welding jobs across a fleet of equipment.
• Deliver support for planning, documenting and providing reminders for service, maintenance and calibration activities.
• View arc time per welding station.
• Provide remote software upgrades to a welding fleet instead of manually configuring them.
• Include GPS locations for welding equipment.
• Prepare event logs for early detection and notification of equipment issues.

“Industries like shipbuilding, fabrication and manufacturing, rental companies, mobile machinery or any company that maintains a large fleet of welders can save hundreds of hours of maintenance time using WeldCloud Fleet,” says Jon Hofmann, Global Product Director – Digital Solutions, ESAB.

WeldCloud Fleet sends immediate notifications from each individual machine to the user, alerting them instantly of issues and service needed. This application also provides a complete machine event log and service log, import and export of welding jobs, and location tracking of each connected machine.

“An alert, such as that the service interval is exceeded, or that the gas or water flow is hindered, can both improve your uptime, but also make sure you do not get bad weld quality,” says Hofmann.

To gain WeldCloud capabilities, users need a WeldCloud enabled power source. For ESAB’s Aristo® series (including for the new Aristo 500ix), users can order WeldCloud as a factory installed application. For Aristo and select Origo power sources, ESAB offers retrofit packages. For any brand of welding equipment, the ESAB Universal Connector connects to the positive and negative terminals to capture basic data (arc on/off time, weld session duration and welding voltage and amperage).

To develop the backbone for WeldCloud, ESAB collaborated with Microsoft because its Azure cloud computing platform allows for a reliable and secure architecture that sends data from a digitally connected-system directly to the cloud. WeldCloud applications are as easy to install and use Office 365, and it only requires a reliable wireless internet connection.

“WeldCloud appeals to operations of all sizes and complexity, including those without sophisticated IT departments,” says Hofmann. “Users can be up and running with the intuitive applications after about an hour of training.” All user data are securely stored in the cloud, eliminating the worry about lost data if a computer system breaks down. If the wireless connection is interrupted, the power source’s WeldCloud module (including the Universal Connector) will continue to save machine data and can store up to a week’s worth of information. The data will automatically update to the user’s account as soon as the wireless connection is restored.

WeldCloud Suite

WeldCloud Fleet can be used as a stand-alone service application or as a bundle with ESAB’s other products, WeldCloud Productivity and WeldCloud Notes, for a complete welding data analytics system. ESAB’s WeldCloud Suite addresses and remedies the key issues affecting the welding industry through digitisation:

• Productivity bottlenecks.
• High costs of poor quality, rework and scrap.
• High costs incurred for administration of regulatory compliance and documentation.
• Equipment failures and downtime.
• Difficulty in finding and retaining skilled welders.
• Challenges associated with managing large fleets of welding equipment.

WeldCloud Productivity, created for production managers, improves welding productivity and traceability. It can improve arc-on time factor by 10 to 50 percent during the first year, track arc-on time, net deposition rate and travel speeds on each weld strike and session for each machine in a fleet and generate reports and analytic functionality.

WeldCloud Notes, created for welding engineers and management, saves time and reduces human error related to document generation and administrative management. WeldCloud Notes enables users to:

• Maintain quality and compliance while managing PQR (procedure qualification records) and WPS (welding procedure specifications) documents in one place.
• Efficiently review all of its PQR, WPS and WPQ (weld procedure qualifications) information with a quick and easy search feature.
• Generate a PQR or WPQ with all essential variables.
• Prevent missing a qualification expiration date or wasting time and money on requalifying welders.

At ESAB, we exist to shape the future of welding and cutting. We connect fabricators with the widest range of products under our industry-leading brand portfolio with the latest technologies to solve virtually any industry challenge — then we back it up with our knowledge, experience and passion to help them be more productive than ever before.