A Cobot Spot Welder Promises Ergonomic Safety and Productivity Gains

Sometimes an innovation comes along that changes the manufacturing landscape. Pro Spot International has created a unique Cobot Spot Welding solution. By bringing this new tool to the sheet metal fabrication market, the company aims to bring game-changing gains in productivity, reliability, traceability, and ergonomic safety to the manufacturing world.

Pro Spot International was founded in 1984 by Ron Olsson, shortly after coming to America from Sweden. Almost 40 years later, Pro Spot is one of the leading companies in manufacturing welding, riveting, sanding, and dent repair tools for automotive repair. Olsson even brought resistance spot welding technology to North America back in the early 2000’s. His knack for innovation and product design led to the development of the company’s Pro Spot i5s resistance spot welder.

Due to the precise standards that the OEM auto manufacturers require to repair cars back to their original specifications, welding has become more science than art in recent years. The Pro Spot i5s spot welder automatically detects the type of metal that needs to be welded, the thickness of the metal, and the type of weld that needs to be performed, thus taking all the manual configuration and set up work out of the hands of the technician.

Through its wireless connectivity platform, it can receive welding program updates from manufacturers as soon as they are available. It can also transmit weld logs after a job has been completed so they can be reviewed for accuracy.

The i5s offers a lightweight transformer gun, which makes it much more ergonomic and easier to use by a technician, and also features on-gun controls and a video screen to make welding jobs easier and faster.

“Our i5s resistance spot welder is, by far, the most advanced welder we’ve ever made,” said Olsson. “As a result, it makes the entire welding process extremely easy and reliable. Combining that level of technology with a safe, easy to program and use automated solution like the Universal Robots’ cobot platform is truly the future of spot welding.”

After the development of the i5s cobot spot welder, Pro Spot saw an opportunity to test the product in its own manufacturing process. At their 60,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Carlsbad, CA, Pro Spot assembles several sheet metal parts for their products. One such product is a four-sided tool tray that is positioned in the top of their welders. Using an old fashioned but tried and true pedestal welding tool, it would take Pro Spot’s assembly operator one full eight-hour shift to make 100 of these tool trays. Using the cobot spot welder, the operator could make the same number of tool trays in 2.5 hours.

Bob Hamilton, Chief Engineer for Pro Spot said, “I knew we would improve productivity, but to achieve 3X throughout, that even impressed Ron,” he said.

Pio Rodrigues, Pro Spot’s welding operator, was also impressed. “The cobot does everything,” he said. “I don’t have to exercise as much!”

“At first, Pio was concerned that the cobot was going to take his job. That’s not the intention at all. The cobot is another tool that he can use to do this job faster and better. As soon as he realized that the cobot was his new best friend,” said Hamilton.

As Pro Spot deploys its cobot spot welding solution out into the marketplace, the company is finding new applications for where it can be used to increase productivity and create efficiencies. “This is a sheet metal fabricator’s dream,” Olsson continued. “Any manufacturer of appliances, electrical boxes, water and liquid dispensers, really anything that requires spot welding and is a repetitive process can benefit from this product.”

“I can’t think of a better go-to-market application than our i5s spot welder and the Universal Robots’ cobot, said Hamilton. “We’ve married the most sophisticated spot welder in the world with the most sophisticated cobot technology in the world to deliver a solution for industrial spot welding that increases productivity, safety, consistency, and job reliability. It’s the forefront of tomorrow, right here today,” he added.

This article was contributed by Greg Anton, Marketing Manager, Pro Spot International. For more information, visit here .

This article first appeared in the August, 2023 issue of Motion Design Magazine.

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