MAHLE Industrial Thermal Systems produces cooling units for railway, construction and agriculture applications. The production of the cooling units includes complex welding seams. However the lot sizes are small and welding robots need to be reprogrammed often, which currently is a lengthy process. This project aims at evaluating Fraunhofer IPA’s Robot Welding Assistant for the application. The solution will potentially increase productivity and ensure high and stable quality for low volume production in an economical way.
Mahle
MAHLE is a leading international development partner and supplier to the automotive industry as well as a pioneer and technology driver for the mobility of the future. The MAHLE Group is committed to making transportation more efficient, more environmentally friendly, and more comfortable by continuously optimizing the combustion engine, driving forward the use of alternative fuels, and laying the foundation for the widespread acceptance and worldwide introduction of e-mobility.
Contribution from RTOs
Fraunhofer IPA
Validation of innovative robot programming software for robotic welding of products of Mahle
Showcasing of robot programming by simulation and real welding process execution on test workpieces
MTC
Business case evaluation
Cost-benefit analysis
Impact (expected)
This project will enable Mahle Thermal Systems to reduce the programming time for their robotic welding cells considerably. The programming solution which is used and developed in this project enables cost-effective robotic welding in small lot size production. The software will be validated for typical welding processes in Mahle’s cooling unit production. The results can be transferred to other products and branches where robotic welding systems are applied for small lot size production.
