Connected welding technology

The new Gateway C-Gate of Carl Cloos Schweisstechnik GmbH allows the demand-oriented management of welding and robot data. This complete information and communication tool centrally records and processes all data. The user-specific display of information allows a detailed visualisation, evaluation and further treatment of the collected operating and welding process data. "With the new C-Gate our customers can connect their robot systems and improve their own production processes and the product quality by means of the new information," explains Ralf Pfeifer, Director of Information Technology and Organisation at CLOOS.

The new system consists of the near-system hardware and the software modules production, quality management and service. As first step, CLOOS will offer the software module production at the beginning of January. With this module, users can illustrate the performance and the efficiency of their robot systems, localise shortages and increase the efficiency. The module allows a comprehensive online monitoring of the robot systems with a detailed reporting about availability, capacity and quality. Thus, possible weak points in the production run are recognised early. Furthermore, system breakdowns or waiting times due to set-up and other downtimes are considerably reduced.

"The efficient machine utilisation, the improved use of resources and the reduced production times allow a higher degree of utilisation" emphasises Pfeifer. "Thus we support our customers on their way to connected production". The new C-Gate can be integrated into existing Industry 4.0 environments. Via standardised interfaces it is possible to transfer the data to superior IT-based solutions such as MES and cloud applications or other systems, for example.