In: Mechanical Engineering
a proposal has been made to install an industrial robot to replace the welder. The cell would consist of the robot, two welding fixtures, and the fitter who loads and unloads the parts. With two fixtures, the fitter and robot would work simultaneously, the robot welding at one fixture while the fitter unloads and loads at the other. At the end of each work cycle, they switch places. The robot would use gas metal arc welding instead of shielded-metal or flux-cored arc welding, but the welding speed would remain the same 300 mm/min. The electrode wire spool must be changed every 10 work parts, which takes 5.0 minutes and is accomplished by the fitter. Determine (a) arc-on time and (b) production rate for this work cell.