Fully automatic welding of small batch sizes

MAHA, a world leader in workshop equipment supplies, has put into operation a robot welding system that sets new standards in terms of flexibility at its corporate headquarters in Haldenwang. Programs for over 150 welded assemblies have been set up after a year of intense activity – with a continuing upward trend.

MAHA is one of the global market leaders in workshop and vehicle testing equipment. The company, founded by Winfried Rauch in Allgäu in 1969, has quickly grown to become a global player with a worldwide workforce of over 1,200 as well as 150 agencies and 17 international subsidiaries.

At the Haldenwang site, about 750 employees produce the full range of workshop equipment, from test stands and vehicle lifting platforms to various types of testing equipment for cars, commercial vehicles, motorbikes and special-purpose vehicles. Workshops and test organizations all over the world value the superior quality of the products that have an excellent reputation for durability and reliability.

Small batch sizes from 10 to 100

Erich Schmölz, head of the robot welding department at MAHA, sums up what this commitment to quality means for production: “On the robot system we must produce welding assemblies in small batch sizes and in absolutely reproducible quality. In the case of our truck lifting platforms, for example, that are offered with a maximum payload of up to 60 tonnes, human lives depend on the correct execution of welding seams. The requirements placed on welding results in quality testing are, depending on relevance, correspondingly stringent.”

Premium quality accompanied by maximum flexibility – MAHA has achieved this “squaring of the circle” with a pathbreaking robot welding system conceived and implemented by the Yaskawa welding experts in close cooperation with the specialists at MAHA in a turn-key system now operating in Haldenwang.