Production Reporting Leads to Insights
The Cobot Welder, powered by Beacon, is a powerful data generating tool. The system automatically tracks a a multitude of production data for every flow that is ran. While running a part, the system is keeping track of several timers as well as consumable consumption. The times that it is tracking are total cycle time, total arc on time and total air-cut time. On the consumables, it is using the parameters that you input in to the part for wire diameter, wire type and gas flow to estimate the amount of the consumables that was used during the part creation.
As a user, you also have the ability to add one or more production reporting steps to a flow. With this step you can also indicate a number of parts made when that step is reached. For instance I have a fixture that holds 4 parts, each time I press play the robot will weld all 4 parts before stopping. At the end of the flow I will receive data for the time and consumables it took to weld all 4 parts. I can also place a production report step into the flow. My choice is whether I want to place one step at the ebnd of the flow and report the quantity made as 4, or place 4 individual steps with a quantity of 1 after each of the 4 parts is made.
By placing a step at the end of each part being made, I will now receive data from the robot respective to the part that it just finished, with this I would know how long and how much wire and gas was used to make each of the parts and could look for inconsistencies in the data. I would still receive at the end of the flow the totals for time and consumables automatically.
End Of Flow Values#
End of flow values will be labeled as Total values and represent the value for the entirety of the flow. They will always be reported regardless if a Production Reporting step is added to the flow.
| Name | Value Represented |
|---|---|
| Total Cycle Time (hr) | This is the total time to produce the part or parts in the flow, reported in fractional hours |
| Total Cycle TIme (sec) | This is the the total time to produce the part or parts in the flow, reported in seconds |
| Total Arc On Time (hr) | This is the total time that the robot was actually welding, reported in fractional hours |
| Total Arc On Time (sec) | This is the total time that the robot was actually welding, reported in seconds |
| Total Air-cut Time (hr) | This is the total time that the robot was performing air-cut motion, reported in fractional hours |
| Total Air-cut Time (sec) | This is the total time that the robot was performing air-cut motion, reported in seconds |
| Total Wire Consumed (lb) | This is the estimated total wire consumption based on the diameter, material and wire feed speed entered, reported in pounds |
| Total Gas Consumption (cf) | This is the estimated total gas consumption based on the gas flow rate entered, reported in cubic feet |
| Quantity Made | This is reported only using a Production Report step, so is reported as 0 at the end of the flow |
Production Report Step Values#
Values reported at a Production Report step will be labeled as Part values and represent the values accumulated either since the start of the program or since the last report production step if you are using multiple Production Report steps in the flow.
| Name | Value Represented |
|---|---|
| Part Cycle Time (hr) | This is the time to produce the part or parts before this step, reported in fractional hours |
| Part Cycle TIme (sec) | This is the the time to produce the part or parts before this step, reported in seconds |
| Part Arc On Time (hr) | This is the time that the robot was actually welding before this step, reported in fractional hours |
| Part Arc On Time (sec) | This is the time that the robot was actually welding before this step, reported in seconds |
| Part Air-cut Time (hr) | This is the time that the robot was performing air-cut motion before this step, reported in fractional hours |
| Part Air-cut Time (sec) | This is the time that the robot was performing air-cut motion before this step, reported in seconds |
| Part Wire Consumed (lb) | This is the estimated wire consumption before this step based on the diameter, material and wire feed speed entered, reported in pounds |
| Part Gas Consumption (cf) | This is the estimated gas consumption before this step based on the gas flow rate entered, reported in cubic feet |
| Quantity Made | This is the number of parts that should be reported at this step in the flow |
Charting Data#
All of the values above are available to be used in charting. Some of the more common charts are Quanity Made, Utilization and Arc On Time.
Quantity Made#
In this example chart the data was charted for a 7 day period using Quantity Made and summed for the day