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Welding Welding automation
Keeping your skilled welders safe is always a priority, but there’s no denying that it can also be challenging. Welding is one of the most hazardous industrial tasks people can do and represents close to 25% of all accidents.
The introduction of cobots, or collaborative robots, can help reduce the number and severity of incidents that affect your welding team, while also increasing productivity. It might seem like working side-by-side with something designed to complete a specific task without interruption might result in more injuries, but the safety of the humans they work with is a major consideration in the design of cobots.
Similar to manual welding, cobot welding safety begins with a clean, hazard free welding cell. It should be free of tripping hazards and have safeguards in place to manage flash and spatter. By addressing the standard safety concerns of the welding industry, you can ensure your welding operations are safe for both manual welding and work with collaborative robots.
Skilled welders are an important part of your manufacturing process and keeping them safe is paramount. Fostering an environment of safety ensures that your team can confidently complete their tasks as safely as possible.
Welding is inherently dangerous. Qualified welders are working a physically demanding job that involves fire, electricity, gasses, and heavy materials. The risk of injury for human workers is high by default on most welding projects. This is one of the reasons why, as mentioned above, welding is one of the more hazardous industrial occupations.
At a high level, the risks include:
These risks are mitigated through personal protection equipment, safety protocols, and procedures designed to protect employees.
Cobots remove human welders from the process, meaning your team isn’t directly involved in dealing with the hot welding unit. This reduces the risks of burns and other heat-related injuries, as well as a lot of the risk from issues like fume inhalation.
Along with that, Cobot welders have a lot of built-in features that are designed to make it safer for the skilled workers using the cobot. These features aren’t always obvious, but cobots contain protocols that prevent them from moving or doing their tasks if they encounter resistance, for example. They also help reduce worker fatigue because the cobot welders are sharing the work with experienced welders, which decreases the risk of human error due to tiredness.
Like a lot of things, training is an important consideration when getting started with cobot welding. Your team needs to fully understand how to work alongside in a collaborative robotics setting, what their role is in the cobot welding process, and what kinds of things they need to watch out for. It also helps if your welders understand basic cobot maintenance.
Along with that, you need to have a workspace that has everything needed to safely operate a welding cobot.
The first step when getting started with cobots is to conduct a risk assessment. You need to be sure that you capture, document, and understand all the possible risks to your employees and possible workspace hazards that you need to mitigate to safely use welding cobots.
Example of risk assessment
Conducting a risk assessment allows you to catalog all possible risks, assign a risk level, and outline the safety solution for your organization. Beyond being a legal requirement, the risk assessment helps you better understand the steps you need to take to ensure worker safety when using cobots. You may find that your collaborative welding operation requires certain safety features to be used during operation that aren’t necessarily standard for welding cobots, like safety cages, scanners, or door locks.
Along with the standard welding safety requirements, there are some factors that you need to consider while setting up cobots for welding. These will ensure that your welders are safe and that your cobots have everything they require to operate as safely as possible.
Human counterparts must be trained and accredited welders. The more someone understands the task and the risks involved, the more likely they are to keep safety front and center in all that they do.
You can’t just assume that the cobot welder has everything under control or that safety is taken care of because that’s what was programmed into the machine. Welders still need to wear PPE and take the same basic precautions they would take if they were doing the work without a cobot. This includes wearing masks and eye protection, heavy gloves, and steel-toed boots, along with any other gear required by the employer.
On top of that, anyone working with a cobot welder should be properly trained to work with cobots. You want to make sure that everyone understands the potential issues that might arise, as well as risks that might not exist when doing the work without a cobot. Cobot welders are designed for safe human interaction, but precautions still need to be taken to protect human workers, just in case.
When paired with traditional welding safety protocol, cobots help increase the safety of your team, while allowing you to continue to meet your production goals, something that’s especially important considering the ongoing labor shortage in the welding industry.Want to learn more about how welding cobots can safely increase productivity in your shop?
Contact us today for more information.