Welding robot MA2010 in operation at Kverneland Nieuw Vennep

Since February 2015, the new Yaskawa welding robot application with 4 workstations has been in operation at agricultural machinery manufacturer Kverneland in Nieuw Vennep. With the reach of the 6-axis robot arm of no less than 2010 mm, especially the large welding assemblies, such as the undercarriages of trailed and self-propelled sprayers, can be completely welded by the robot. The MA2010 runs on a servo controlled track of 15 meters long and can operate four workstations, each with a clamping length of 6 meters. Thus Kverneland has the first Yaskawa MA2010 welding robot delivered in the Benelux in operation.

"A logical investment for our company", says B. Behari, department Head of Production at Kverneland. "Until recently, these kind of large frames were welded by hand but the whole production policy is aimed at automating more and more. Not only for the large frames, but in principle all welded parts that are suitable in terms of shape and number for robotic welding. After manually joining the individual parts in the welding mould, the joined part goes to the new welding application, where the work piece is completely welded by the welding robot".

 

Why Yaskawa?

"We placed our wish in the market and Yaskawa Benelux advised us to use the newest robot type MA2010 for this large welding job; this in combination with 4 workstations with workpiece manipulators type HSB 1000SN with SPB counter bearing. Each manipulator has a lifting capacity of 1000 kg and a clamping length of 6 meters. The installation is equipped with a Fronius TPS4000 power source and provided with a gas head search system in combination with a light arc controlled seam tracking system of the type ComArc, with which workpiece tolerances and seam distortions can be captured. In addition, the welding robot is equipped with a TCP measuring station, with which any torch deviations can be corrected automatically  

Especially the excellent support, the perfect service at any time we need it, the professional guidance and training of the operating staff, was the deciding factor to choose Yaskawa", says Mr. B. Behari. Programmer and operator Hans Engels also agrees: "We have more than 30 years of experience with robots in our production facility, so we were able to make a good assessment of what we needed for our work. In the end, it was the Yaskawa robot"  

 

Kverneland Group

Founded in Norway by a certain Gabriel Kverneland in 1879, the plough factory has now grown into a world player in the field of agricultural machinery. The Dutch production facility is located in Nieuw Vennep with about 300 employees. Sprayers and (fertilizer) spreaders for agriculture are produced here. Kverneland currently employs about 28,000 people. With the brands Taarup, Accord, Rau and Kverneland the company is one of the leading manufacturers of agricultural machinery in Europe. Continued investment in automation is one of the company's main priorities.

Read about the second Yaskawa welding robot at Kverneland