Enhancing Patient Safety: Advanced Welding Cells in Healthcare Manufacturing

When one thinks about the industries that might use a robotic welding cell, they might consider the automotive or the electronics industry, even the aerospace industry. However, it is doubtful that their first thought would be the healthcare industry – and that would be wrong.

The healthcare industry has been using robotics for years to manufacture their products, and those applications include welding.

Healthcare-product manufacturer Midmark Corporation has had welding cell automation in their facility since 2005 when they integrated a Motoman welding cell with a robot welder and a robot positioner. The weld cell was installed to assemble and weld cabinets for examination tables.

From that welding cell, Midmark has expanded their business, even adding a GMAW cell for those higher-volume product lines. They even invested in a leaner robotic weld cell for a lower volume line over time.

Midmark made these investments because their manual welding application was just too labor intensive. By changing from a manual application to an automated robot welding cell, the company was able to relieve three workers to other areas that were less labor intensive. They were also able to run their cell two shifts per day, processing 150 weldments per shift.

The robot welding cells also brought the company more accuracy and all around better products. Once they switched to able to increase their error-proofing and quality control practices, which helped to enhance their products overall.