The Future of Welding: How Vision-Based Automation is Redefining Productivity

In today’s fabrication landscape, the pressure to deliver “more for less” has never been higher. As quality standards from OEMs become increasingly stringent, shops are moving beyond simple automation toward intelligent, “hands-free” systems. To illustrate this shift, we are sharing a compelling case study recently featured in The Tube and Pipe Journal (a publication of The Fabricator). It follows the journey of Apex Mechanical & Fabrication and their integration of Tecnar’s vision-based adaptive welding control.

Manufacturers and fabricators remain ever on the hunt for greater productivity: more output for equal or lesser input. However, as end customers’ quality expectations continue to increase, so do demands from OEMs and their suppliers for equipment that can deliver both a higher number of parts per hour and higher quality.

From Semiautomatic to Virtually Hands-Free

A desire for both is essentially how Apex Mechanical & Fabrication Inc., Newport, Del., first came to invest in Tecnar’s rotary welding automation technology. Apex serves multiple markets within the industrial, commercial, and institutional sectors, including oil and gas terminals, petrochemical facilities, data centers, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, schools, and hospitals.

Well before the fabricator of pipe, skidded modular systems, OEM fabrications, custom sheet metal components, and structural steel bought its Rotoweld 3.0 equipment two years ago, the company simply needed a better way to perform high-quality welds on a job that demanded a high amount of both quality and work hours.

That was in 2007, when Apex had just landed a large oil and gas midstream tank expansion project and needed welding machinery that would enable it to weld large-diameter pieces quickly with minimal errors. After looking at what early adopters had done, the company purchased a Rotoweld 2000 semiautomatic pipe spool welding machine, outfitted with machine vision and motion control.

With that machine, Apex welded 38,000 ft. of carbon steel pipe, performing 4,000 butt welds in its shop (in addition to 1,500 in the field) while achieving a reject rate of less than 1%. Based on its experience with that project, the company continued to use the Rotoweld 2000 in its fabrication shop until December 2023, when it decided to upgrade to the all-GMAW Rotoweld 3.0. At the time, the machine was running on Tecnar’s semiautomated welding assistance program Rootomatic. Apex adapted to the new equipment quickly, achieving benchmark productivity.

Seeing the Small Picture

Following these successes, Apex decided to purchase the option to integrate PerfectPass-iQ in its Rotoweld 3.0. This software provides real-time, vision-based adaptive welding control. The system watches for incongruities in the weld and makes the appropriate changes to speed, torch movement, power, or any other parameter requiring adjustment.

Instead of using a finite bank of stored images to guide the welding process as past Tecnar machines have done, this latest software behaves like a human eye, enabling the welding machine to respond in real time, Tecnar CEO Alexandre Nadeau said, Tecnar CEO Alexandre Nadeau said. “So, we decided to design a highly customized software with image processing to always get, in the end, a crisp information set of everything that’s on the screen. Everything’s measured and tracked.”

“The PerfectPass-iQ software has allowed us to advance from some operator input to virtually no operator input while performing the welding operations,” said Apex President/CEO Patrick Oakes.

“The speed, efficiency, and quality all appear to have improved with the use of the PerfectPass-iQ, and our welders and operators have provided very positive feedback.”

New Tech, New Speed

“The configuration lends itself to speed and efficiency that cannot be matched by manual or semiautomatic processes,” Oakes said. “We utilize it for ASME custom pressure vessels 48 in. and down and pipe spools 3 in. dia. through 48 in. dia. It allows Apex operations to be much more efficient by allowing us to produce over 60% more finished spool pieces in a single shift with quality, repeatability, and traceability that we previously could not do with manual or semiautomatic processes.”

The software also features a Program Builder to help shops maintain quality by guiding operators. “Eventually, that all gets stored, and you build your own inventory of programs,” Nadeau explains.

Getting Ahead in the Cloud

One of the latest upgrades is traceability via a cloud-based reporting system that gathers data about virtually every aspect of a particular welding job. The reporting system even includes color-coded flags to let operators know if the system had a difficult time achieving the correct weld.

For its part, Apex uses this latest system to win business it normally would not have, allowing the company to maintain and even increase the number of shop employees to meet increased demand, Oakes stated. He added that the system has “enhanced the quality of the pipe fabrication we supply and allows us to produce weld QA data easily for our clients. The 3.0 has allowed us to perform larger pipe fabrication projects primarily in the midstream oil and gas markets where, prior to using the Rotoweld, we would not have been competitive.”

At Tecnar, we are committed to sharing the latest technological breakthroughs that drive the industry forward. The success of Apex Mechanical with vision-based automation is a testament to how the right technology can transform operational competitiveness.

Source: This article was originally authored by Lincoln Brunner for The Tube and Pipe Journal, a publication of The Fabricator. Reproduced with permission.