A million welds and zero downtime

Centerline Brackets has built a reputation on crafting heavy-duty American-made steel supports. This commitment to quality is crucial, as their products must consistently support hundreds of pounds. Prior to adopting collaborative robots, Centerline Brackets relied on manual welding, a process that consumed about seven minutes to eight minutes per bracket. “And you could tell who had built it based on the quality of the weld,” says CEO of Centerline Brackets, Tracy Smith. “We needed consistency.”

With the cobot welder, each bracket now takes a minute or less. “It’s a huge time saver,” says Chris Smith. “We’re now doing the same amount of production with two welders and a cobot as we were doing with eight welders before.” The arrival of the cobot, however, did not cause layoffs. “During COVID we struggled with high turnover, the cobot just gradually took over those positions,” says Tracy Smith.

For years, Centerline Brackets had explored robotic automation but had yet to find a product that could be safely integrated into their environment. That changed when Chris Smith, having already researched Universal Robots and Vectis software, attended the FABTECH show in Chicago. “We went to Vectis’ booth, and I was just amazed by what I saw,” he says. “I was particularly impressed by the cobot's very accurate and super safe design, and the ease of setup.” The Centerline team made an immediate decision, purchasing a show model directly off the FABTECH show floor.

Due to its location in St. Augustine, Florida, the weld shop at Centerline Brackets quickly gets hot and humid. “When the cobot arrived, we eliminated overtime right away,” says Tracy Smith. “In the summer, our staff gets overworked and slows down. The cobot doesn’t do that.” Chris Smith recalls how his team used to be at the shop every night of the week until 7 or 8pm. “Now we’re out of the shop by 3 or 4pm, it makes it a lot more livable instead of having your head down in a welding mask for 12 hours a day,” he says. “It’s super important to have a good culture inside of your business and also being a place where people feel comfortable and they want to work. The cobot helped us accomplish that.”

Centerline Brackets is now exploring deploying their second cobot for a different product line involving heavy-duty aluminum products. “It makes no sense to have a human standing there doing a zillion small welds, it’s a great job for the cobot,” says Chris Smith, who doesn’t hesitate in recommending any weld shop owners to go into cobot welding: “If you’re still wondering whether it’s a good idea, just go do it. Or come down to my shop and watch it in action. And you’ll be a believer that fast.”