An important part of the ABB Global Solution Centre are the well-equipped laboratories, which are used for sam-pling customer parts during project discussions. Due to the complexity of some parts, ABB uses these laboratories to internally verify the proposed manufacturing processes and the feasibility of the customer’s requirements. Test-ing often results in a number of recommendations for optimizing the input parts, thus eliminating problems that may arise later in connection with fine-tuning the production process.
ABB’s Global Centre for Material Joining and Cutting has laboratories for arc and laser welding as well as laser cut-ting. They are equipped with state-of-the-art technologies from various process technology manufacturers. ABB can thus test various types of arc welding processes, laser welding with fixed optics or with a fixed head, cold wire weld-ing for aluminium, the weld guidance for the robot (an on-line tracking systems based on measuring welding arc parameters for ABB Weldguide IV, or alternative optical systems) and other associated processes. Macrographic tests to verify the quality of the welds (penetration, cracks, porosity) are carried out using laboratory equipment. The customer is thus assured that the delivered workplace will produce parts that are optimal as concerns both quality and cycle time.