North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
North America's Largest Metal Forming, Fabricating, Welding and Finishing Event
December culminates the celebration of the American Welding Society’s (AWS’s) first 100 years and marks the beginning of a brand-new era. AWS’s centennial birthday is more than just a celebration of the Society, it’s a recognition of an ever-evolving industry. As the world around us rapidly changes, the Welding Journal asked industry leaders “What do you think the next 100 years will bring to the welding industry?”
By Cindy Weihl
Jeff Deckrow, vice president, Hypertherm Americas
“During the next 100 years, the industry will change in remarkable ways. Welding will become cleaner as manufacturers invent ways to eliminate the fumes and smoke we see today, and more efficient through the use of automation and the arrival of Industry 4.0. These innovations will solve the skills gap and help us attract more workers. Instead of welders and fabricators monitoring their equipment, the equipment will monitor itself, making automatic adjustments that optimize performance. Preventative maintenance will become predictive maintenance, with systems automatically placing orders for needed parts and drones delivering those orders. Also, I think instead of buying equipment outright as we do today, companies will instead choose to rent or subscribe to equipment. Similar to how we subscribe to services like Netflix, paying for it on a per-use basis rather than treating it as a capital expense.”
Alexander E. Shapiro, brazing products manager, Titanium Brazing Inc.
“The main challenge for welding and brazing in the next 100 years will be a revolution in structural materials. Traditional materials, such as carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminum, or copper alloys, nickel-based superalloys, and others have exhausted their maximum mechanical and physico-chemical properties and do not meet modern or future strength requirements, nor requirements for heat and oxidation resistance. New composite materials, including multilayer lightweight structures, nanocomposites, ductile ceramics, refractory, and high-entropy alloys will come into the industry during the next 50–100 years. The upcoming generation of structural materials will require new welding and brazing materials and processes for joining and reliable service.”
Shyam Kambeyanda, president, ESAB & SVP Colfax Corp.
“Where the previous century focused on developing welding processes and filler metals, data-driven innovations and connected solutions will shape the future of the welding and cutting industry. Through an ongoing process of continuous improvement, our goal at ESAB is to provide companies with the technologies that help them put data to work in four areas: improving assets management, increasing productivity, streamlining traceability/documentation, and boosting first-pass quality.
Welding and cutting speeds are approaching the physical limits because you can add only so much heat to a part before degrading its metallurgy and mechanical properties. As a result, the richest productivity opportunities come from optimizing activities surrounding the arc, and making intelligent decisions requires accurate information. Welding- and cutting-oriented software, accessed through cloud-based solutions, will enable machines and humans to consistently achieve their peak performance.
In the future, virtually any piece of digital equipment that can become ‘smart,’ will be smart. Paired with 5G wireless technology and mobile applications, welders will rely on their smart phone as much as their welding helmet (which of course will have a real-time parameter display and weld discontinuity alerts).
What won’t change in the future is our need for highly skilled labor, especially in field applications. Workers will, however, use and train on smarter tools. In addition, our industry will create many new jobs not traditionally associated with welding, such as data analysts, software programmers, and automation technicians.”
Greg Doria, vice president, marketing, Lincoln Electric
“At Lincoln Electric, staying connected to our customers and the end users of our products helps us anticipate their future needs.
There is no question that the digital transformation sweeping manufacturing will have an impact on how goods are produced, operations are monitored, and goods are brought to market and used over the next century. The chief advantage of adopting digital tools and processes is efficiency and speed — shortened development cycles and reduced time to market. Beyond IoT and software solutions, metal additive manufacturing is, in some ways, spearheading this transformation. Advancements in production monitoring and remote preventative maintenance and diagnostics will continue to change the way operators, managers, and supply chains work in production environments.
On a related path, robotic and mechanized automation will continue to make strides that will increase production cycle time, quality, and worker safety. Other automated processes like cutting and motion control are trending toward increasing sophistication, so that one machine today replaces the work of multiple machines in the last century. Of course, artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to have an impact on fabrication moving forward. Collaborative robots are already improving the way we manage part programming, and automated systems may account for real-time, in-process programming.
Finally, new welding and cutting processes will continue to emerge. Our current work with friction spin welding and hot wire laser systems are pointing the way to new joining methods.”
Daniel C. Hayden, president, Hayden Corp.
“Welding and metal fabricating seem to me to enjoy an incredible accessibility when it comes to advancement. The great leaps that have come to my niche market of thermal spraying seem to have sprung from inventors and technicians, hands-on participants in the industry. Each time a new tool or technology has come to us from another field of research or exploration, someone has asked ‘what happens if we do this with it?’ and a new process is born. This makes our industry fertile ground for new ideas. The spectrum of energy sources is more broad today than ever before, from lasers to power supplies to plasmas, and the overwhelming trend in each has been toward lower cost and greater control. It would seem logical that all of this will point to the better use of high-performance materials. As the consistency and quality of advanced welding and joining techniques swiftly improves, designers and technicians will likely try and succeed in efforts to use long-lasting, high-durability materials exactly where they are most effective, while reducing cost and improving manufacturing efficiency everywhere else. More precise tools such as laser deposition and cold spraying will likely be key in this pursuit in the short term, as they reduce the need for unnecessary material and provide more dependable results.”
David Knoll, vice president/general manager, Hobart Brothers LLC
“Like the first 100-plus years for Hobart and AWS, our industry will continue pioneering innovative ways to join metals in the next 100. Regardless of changes that take place with materials or processes, welding is likely to remain a core foundation of technological advancement in the world.”
Anshu Mehrotra, group president, Global Industrial Platform, ITW Welding
“The welding industry is rapidly evolving with different applications and welding skill levels and is becoming more complex. Equipment manufacturers need to continue seeking ways to present targeted solutions to address these challenges. This will require a deep understanding of end users’ needs and value-added, differentiated products and support. Innovation has been the cornerstone of our contribution to the welding industry in the past, and we are committed to delivering customer-backed, innovation-based technologies to take us into the next 100 years and beyond.”
FABTECH 2024
About the Expo
North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
