Setup Time Reduction For Submerged Arc Welding and Standardization

Abstract

The last decade has seen dramatic technical breakthroughs in automatic and semi au- tomatic welding equipment. The main bene ts attributed to automated welding are improved economy derived from faster cycle times and high productivity. Currently the industry is facing a challenge to reduce setup time for submerged arc welding for circumferential seam welding in pressure vessel manufacturing. The main objective of this project is to identify the problem areas a ecting the setup time and to developed a new standardized Submerged Arc Welding(SAW) setup which will minimize the setup time. For this project the time study of the existing setup is carried out and setup time is calculated. For the same, current process plan is studied and problem areas & non value added activity during setup preparation is identi ed. Identi ed problems are analyzed using di erent workstudy techniques like ABC analysis, Priority matrix, and Pareto analysis. The conclusion of these methods gives the critical problems which are responsible for larger setup time in existing SAW setup. After identifying the critical problems of the existing setup, new setup is conceptual- ized incorporating the modification cations and eliminating the identify ed problems. Detail design is carried out for components of the SAW station and modeling is done using SOLIDEDGE-ST2 Software. Design of structural components of the proposed SAW station is veri ed by Finite Element Analysis using NX-IDEAS software. Desing of the modular burner arrangement is carried out using Value Engineering principles. Value analysis is also carried out on the prototype developed.