New Danish system to help deal with global shortage of welders

An innovation from the Danish company WeldingDroid will help eliminate one of the less popular tasks in the welding industry. Welders will no longer have to stand inside tanks supplying gas while their colleagues weld the outside of the tank. The Danish invention “PurgeMaster” from WeldingDroid automatically follows the movements of the tank welder, accurately applying a constant stream of gas. The new procedure means big savings of both time and gas.

Purging with gas is a costly and time-consuming operation, but it is crucial in preventing oxidation on the inside of pipes during welding. Kevin Christensen, the founder of the company WeldingDroid, trained and worked as a smith, and his experience here provided the inspiration for his revolutionary PurgeMaster system. It saves both time and gas.

PurgeMaster doses the gas so accurately that it can reduce gas consumption when welding pipes by as much as 95 percent.

The normal procedure is to fill pipes with gas and to flush them through continuously during the welding process. We have now made it possible to apply gas precisely where the weld is being performed. The gas supply inside the pipe follows the welder on the outside, explains Kevin Christensen, CTO at WeldingDroid.

Game changer in welding gas

WeldingDroid unveiled PurgeMaster to the international welding industry at the recently held Schweisstec trade fair, where the innovative system was extremely well received according to Mikkel Falk, CEO of WeldingDroid. Mikkel relates that the company has already received orders for PurgeMaster from new customers in countries including Israel, Latvia and Portugal. Gas suppliers are also showing interest in the product, which is the first of its kind in the world.

We actually expect our system to lead to a general change in the way welding gas is used. Gas is resource-intensive to produce and to transport, and because the PurgeMaster system offers such substantial savings, it is set to become the natural choice for all industries where pipes have to be welded, says Mikkel Falk, CEO of WeldingDroid.

Samir Khoury represents S.K. Engineering & Projects in Israel, one of the metal industry companies. He has invested in the patented Danish invention. The staff counts 150 employees, working with process industries, piping systems and mechanical works. As he explains, there are several reasons for the decision: 

We need to overcome the lack of skilled employees such as qualified welders and pipefitters. Also, we would like to optimize our processes, productivity and costs to stay competitive, said Samir Khoury from S.K. Engineering & Projects.

 Potential for improved earnings in the metal industry

The PurgeMaster system enables a single welder both to weld and to apply gas when welding large tanks and containers. If the assignment involves welding pipes rather than tanks, the welder can automate both the actual welding and the supply of gas to the pipe, freeing up time to handle other, more complex tasks instead. All this requires is to fit the PurgeMaster system to the X1 or WS welding robot from WeldingDroid. Through the new system, WeldingDroid is thus both aligning with current wave of sustainability and addressing the increasing lack of qualified welders. The PurgeMaster system can also be used in connection with manual processes.

Faced with rising pay rates and increasing prices of both raw materials and freight, many manufacturers in the metal industry are experiencing a pressing need to improve their efficiency and profitability. Against this background, there is much to be gained from not tying the qualified welders at a workplace to low-profit tasks and having them work on more profitable tasks instead.

Our data from the forging- and metal companies that use WeldingDroid robots demonstrate that the robots boost our customers’ productivity and help to complete welding operations 3–6 times faster. For example, the robot can weld a 3 mm-thick stainless steel pipe with a diameter of 400 mm in less than six minutes – including a 10 mm overlap. Manually welding the same pipe typically takes between 35 and 40 minutes, depending on how experienced the welder is. Moreover, the automated process generates documentation automatically and ensures top quality every time because the robot never gets tired, relates Kevin Christensen, founder and CTO of WeldingDroid. 

In the United States, the American Welding Society forecasts a shortfall of 314,000 welders in 2024. The reason for this is that many welders are currently approaching retirement age, while demand for welders is increasing and, at the same time, fewer and fewer young people are interested in joining the profession. The situation is the same in Europe and Australia.

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