Hobart Brothers Blog Archive Part Two: Can Metal-Cored Wire Improve Your Produ...

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Hobart Brothers Performance Welding.

PART TWO: CAN METAL-CORED WIRE IMPROVE YOUR
PRODUCTIVITY
Part One of our series on metal-cored wire introduced some basic information on the technology, its general characteristics
and benefits, operating parameters and the applications in which it excels. More importantly, the article also explained how
these attributes could improve your welding productivity by eliminating unnecessary pre- or post-weld activities and labor.

Now that you have these basics, the next step is to determine if your welding operation is a good candidate for metal-cored
wire. And if so, how can you justify this technology to the decision makers in your company?
Is There Potential?
As you may recall, metal-cored wires greatest potential for productivity improvements lies outside of the weld cell, in the preand post-weld areas of the operation. In these areas, the wire frequently eliminates costly, time-consuming, and often
unnecessary labor for activities that do not contribute directly to the successful throughput of the welding operation. Often
called compensation or non-valued activities, these tasks include, but are not limited to: grinding, sandblasting, removing weld
spatter and/or reworking defective parts due to lack of fusion or undercut.
To determine whether metalcored wire can increase your
productivity, first assess the preand post-weld areas in your
welding operation to establish
whether you have a solid baseline
for improvement. Consider all the
activities and the associated labor
occurring in these areas, along
with the impact that they have on
your overall workflow. A trusted
welding distributor or equipment
supplier can usually help.
When thinking of pre-weld
activities, ask yourself: do you
grind or sandblast in your preweld area? Do you apply anti
spatter prior to welding? If so, are
Assess all activities in the pre- and post-weld areas of your welding these activities are absolutely
necessary or are they are
operation to determine if you have a baseline for improving your
compensating for the current
productivity.
welding wire you are using in your
operation? You also need to
determine whether these activities are causing bottlenecks in the upstream portion of your welding operation. If so, quantify
how much time you are using for these grinding or other such pre-weld activities, along with the amount and cost of the labor
necessary to complete them. Also factor in the cost and time for maintaining, repairing or replacing grinding or sandblasting
equipment. You may also want to consider the health and safety aspects of these tasks, especially in terms of operator fatigue
and repetitive injuries. Likewise, if you use anti-spatter in your welding operation, calculate the cost for purchasing the solution,
the labor necessary for applying it, and the time and labor needed to clean the area (anti-spatter is notoriously messy and
frequently accumulates on machinery).
Next, look at the post-weld area of your welding operation. Quantify the overhead for activities that occur here, such as grinding
or scraping spatter. Be certain to include the labor and equipment costs, along with the time it takes to complete each activity
per part. If you have problems with undercut, lack of fusion, leaks in welded tanks or other weld discontinuities that require the
part to be reworked, quantify the amount of labor and time necessary to do so. Most importantly, calculate the material and
labor cost for any parts that must be completely rejected, and therefore, scrapped due to irreparable quality issues.

Also consider the activities that occur in the actual weld cell. Although there is less opportunity for productivity increases here,
there is still important information you need to capture. For example, you should measure the volume of parts welded per shift,
the amount of time (arc-on time) required to produce each part and the welding parameters, such as the wire feed speed,
amperage, voltage and shielding gas flow rate your welding operators are using for each part. This information can help you
calculate the overall impact of switching to metal cored wire.

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Once youve gathered all of the information on the pre- and post-weld areas of your welding operation, and youve quantified
the arc-on time and other information from your welding cell, you can establish a baseline for improvement and begin to
determine if your welding operation is a good candidate for metal-cored wire.
Based on the data you collected, ask yourself these questions:
1.Isour volume of pre- and post-weld activities higher than we want?
2.Dowehavehighlaborcostsforthese areas?
3.Dowehavequalityissuesthatresultinahigh volume of rework?
4.Dowerejectahighvolumeof parts?
5.Isourproductivitylowerthanwed like?
If you answer yes, then you may very well be a good candidate for metal-cored wire. Next, youll need to consider how to justify
the change from your current welding wire.
What is the Payback?
Often metal-cored wire will cost more than other filler metals, particularly solid wire. The exception to this statement is certain
high strength-low alloy metal-cored wires, which frequently have a lower unit price than their solid wire equivalent. Regardless,
you still need to justify the additional upfront expense and/or the process change to the decision makers in your company the
same way you would a capital expenditure. Specifically, you should show exactly how changing to metal-cored wire can
increase productivity and profitability by resolving any inefficiencies in your current welding operation. These could include low
productivity, high labor costs, a high volume of rework, or other factors affecting the quality of products.
So, how do you determine whether there is a payback and justify the change to metal-cored wire?

This graph shows a real-life example of a solid and metal-cored wire assessment.
Notice the greatest productivity potential in the pre- and post-weld areas.
First, show how the data collected during the pre-weld assessment of your welding operation can translate into a better use of
laboror more importantly, labor that adds to greater productivity. For example, if your operation contains a significant amount
of pre-weld activities, show your decision makers how metal-cored wire could reduce labor by eliminating sandblasting, antispatter application or grinding; calculate the potential time and cost savings for them. Also, show how much of that labor could
be reallocated elsewhere in the welding operation, particularly to the weld cell, to produce a higher volume of parts. Calculate
the potential increase in parts production that you anticipate through this reallocation of labor. Likewise, consider how much
labor you could move from the post-weld area of the welding operation to the welding cell if you were able to reduce your
volume of rework and/or parts rejection with metal-cored wire.
Determine again what the potential increase in volume would beboth in terms of parts and overall profit. Note: when you
place more welding operators in the weld cell, youll also need to assess your current smoke exhaust system to ensure it can
safely accommodate the additional activity. Include any data on this matter in your evaluation.
Lastly, show the possible improvements that could occur in the weld cell by converting to metal-cored wire. As you may recall

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from part one of this series, metal-cored wire offers higher deposition rates and faster travel speeds than many other products,
bringing with it the possibility of completing the welding process fasterand increasing overall productivity. Here, calculate the
potential increase in parts production and share it with your companys decision makers.

A trusted welding distributor or filler metal manufacturer can help with each of these aforementioned calculations.
Whats Next?
If the assessment of your welding operation shows that you have a solid baseline for improving productivity and you can show
the decision makers in your company that potential, youre ready to take the next step: conducting a metal-cored wire trial.
Your welding distributor or filler metal manufacturer can help implement metal-cored wire in a portion of your operation, as well
as offer technical support so the technology yields the best results for your application. These individuals will also provide a
comprehensive comparison of the trial results to your current welding process, and help you convert completely to the
technology if the trial (and your decision makers) shows that the metal-cored wire can benefit your entire welding operation.
Remember, it may take some time to complete this entire process, but it is absolutely crucial to ensuring metal-cored wire can
improve your productivity in real life, not just in theory.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 and is filed under Articles.

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