In the manufacturing industry, many people fear robots, worrying that mechanical equipment will replace manual labor. However, TUBE CHINA 2024 has found that many pipe and tube manufacturers believe that robots are not "competing" with humans for jobs, but rather making operators' work easier and improving the quality of production.

The Melton Company, located in Washington State, USA, is a manufacturer of automated welding systems. It integrates machines from different suppliers - mainly Universal Robots for its robotic components, as well as welding machines from Fronius, Miller Electric, OTC Daihen, SKS Welding Systems, and Lincoln Electric.

TUBE CHINA 2024 learned from Glenn Archer, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Melton Company, that most customers purchase equipment to increase production speed, while some customers want to do fusion welding.

About half of the systems sold by Melton last year were equipped with collaborative robots. Melton believes that in his customer base, robots do not replace welders' jobs, but rather transform the way of work. The company determines which tasks are suitable for robots and which ones are suitable for humans through step-by-step exploration, maximizing advantages at the same time.

Archer said, "It's not easy for a human to hold a workpiece at 37 degrees, but if the new process requires adjusting the workpiece to a 42-degree angle, humans can easily do it. Robots generally excel at repetitive tasks, but are not good at discretionary judgment and random adaptability—at least for now, robots cannot quickly make the most correct choices when encountering unexpected situations."

He also pointed out that many customers worry about factory employees having objections to mechanized equipment, but the welders in the factory have not lost their jobs and still need to perform manual welding, but no longer need to do it all day. With the assistance of robots, many workers can free their hands and work becomes troubleshooting or process development, which is indeed a good thing.

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