Startup Spirit, Global Expertise: ESAB’s Welding Innovations Redefine the Industry

Based in North Bethesda, Md., ESAB Corp. consistently drives product innovation with the agility of a startup, noted Peter Burchfield, general manager for ESAB’s Global Equipment Solutions Group. This dynamic approach, rooted in 120 years of global metal fabrication expertise and leadership, allows them to push boundaries regarding new product development. Evidence of this forward-thinking strategy is clear as the company’s FABTECH business group launches an average of 100 new fabrication products annually.

Burchfield is based in Switzerland and his group develops and manages light and heavy industrial welding equipment, torches, PPE and accessories. Since its inception in 1904 in Sweden, ESAB has become a global leader in fabrication and gas control technology with its groundbreaking products, workflow solutions and business-management system called ESAB Business Excellence.

ESAB’s portfolio offers a comprehensive suite of filler metals, light and heavy industrial equipment, robotics, and automation products, serving industries such as transportation and automotive, mobile machinery, shipbuilding, health care, aerospace, pipelines, power generation, repair and maintenance, process industries and more.

ESAB has been on a significant growth trajectory in recent years, marked by acquisitions that have expanded its global footprint. The company’s portfolio includes 40 global and regional brands including  InduSuite, Thermal Dynamics®, and Victor®. With operations on six continents and in 147 countries, ESAB has a significant worldwide footprint. The recent period of expansion was further solidified in 2022 when ESAB began publicly trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

You don’t get to be a 120-year-old global company without listening to and actively engaging with your end users regarding their everyday pain points and challenges, developing solutions and products, and field testing and tweaking them, to solve existing and future challenges. ESAB maintains its position as a market leading supplier by building products backed by its expertise and heritage. By fully understanding where product gaps exist in the metal fabrication sector, ESAB’s global product management and R&D teams know where to direct their energies and innovations to meet customer needs.

The “Ultimate Line-Up” Delivers

Listening to the voice of the customer is fundamental in the development of products. In 2023, ESAB rebranded and released the “Ultimate Line-Up,” initiative, which includes the equipment portfolio within the equipment solutions division, Burchfield noted. “We undertook a big effort to innovate and redefine our portfolio of welding equipment, PPE and torches,” he said.
Recent products include the award-winning Renegade VOLT ES 200i Battery Powered Stick and TIG Welder; the Warrior Edge 500 with RobustFeed Edge; the award-winning Rustler EM series for compact MIG/MAG, FCAW and MMA welding; the Rebel EMP multi-process welders; and the award-winning Rogue EMP 210. These products enable light and heavy industrial welders to meet the diverse skills needs of incumbent and first-time welders. ESAB also offers FloCloud, a gas monitoring software solution for large end users and their factories.

Another recent product is ESAB’s RobustFeed AVS ECHO automatic voltage-sensing wire feeder, which enables voltage adjustment at the feeder without a communication/control cable to the power source, eliminating trips to the power source to adjust voltage. One benefit is that from the first weld, the system performs a measurement and compensates for any losses that occur in the welding circuit for the subsequent welds.

Burchfield added the Renegade VOLT stick/TIG battery-powered welding system combines ESAB’s best-in-class arc performance with Stanley Black & Decker’s DeWalt brand, which is a provider of best-in-class batteries for tools. “What is special about VOLT’s hybrid modes is you can run off the grid,” Burchfield said. “The welding system has three operating modes.” It can run off battery power, 120/230V AC primary power, or in AMP+ hybrid mode, which supplements wall power with battery power to mitigate circuit breaker tripping.

Additionally, this welding system enables an output of 10–150A on battery power. With four charged 12 Ah (amp-hour) batteries, and set to an output of 80A, the Renegade VOLT can weld with up to 33 (E6013) electrodes or TIG weld for up to 45 minutes on a single charge.

The welding system weighs 50 lbs. with the batteries and battery box attached, and 22 lbs. with just the power source.

“We understand there is a big pain point when doing offsite or remote welding when using engine driven welders,” Burchfield said. “By making an extremely portable solution with a ton of power to get the job done, fabricators can reduce their set up time and increase their job-site efficiency. Additionally, fabricators no longer need to run long cables throughout the shop to do a quick repair.”

ESAB’s R&D and project management teams are also behind the Warrior EDGE power source, which runs much like a computer, for heavy industrial work. ESAB adds new weld processes, weld modes and/or software updates every quarter to support processes such as thin welding, double pulse and fume mitigation. The Warrior Edge 500 DX features four advanced MIG WeldModes such as thin, craft, root, root pipe and speed — as well as an Advanced Pulse WeldMode. The modes enhance arc stability, offer more control at faster travel speeds and reduce spatter by up to 85%.

Burchfield said the weld modes addressed a gap in ESAB’s product range. The ROOT Pipe WeldMode optimizes gap bridging in vertical down pipe applications. The ROOT WeldMode is optimized for root passes on plates in all welding positions and creates a smooth arc even while weaving.

Burchfield noted the system is intuitive and very well thought out. The EDGE program is suitable for either manual or robotic welding. Watch for the addition of new innovations regarding torches and the Warrior EDGE platform.

Automation Aims to Close the Labor Gap

ESAB’s automated products and digital workflow solutions support fabricators grappling with the welder shortage. For robotic or cobotic automation, fabricators can leverage ESAB products like the Aristo EDGE 500R. The Aristo EDGE 500R power source is a component of a robotic welding solution, the Aristo EDGE RoboSystem.

“We have all the tools in place to be a very formidable competitor in the robot and cobot space, especially with robotic torches and robotic cleaning stations,” Burchfield said.

ESAB’s product lineup is backed by its digital solutions offering, InduSuite, which is a cloud-based, brand-agnostic workflow software for manual, robotic, SAW automation, and cutting operations. Three key benefits for shops of all sizes include: accessing data and documents with an easy-to-use interface; real-time insights into performance, traceability and workforce accountability; and a level of control over metal fabrication operations.

“The InduSuite portfolio helps our customers improve efficiency and quality at every step of the fabrication process, from plate to finished product,” said Jon Hofmann, director of product development for InduSuite. “For example, one of our customers, an Italian manufacturer of agricultural equipment gained 6,000 more hours of welding time, a Finnish manufacturer of mining equipment increased arc-on to 20% (about double the industry average), and a Brazilian petrochemical giant saved thousands of hours of engineering time while improving weld quality and reducing risk.”

ESAB also offers offline robotic programming through its OCTOPUZ product.

“We have different connectivity options around welding documentation, productivity, fleet monitoring, and gas monitoring within InduSuite that definitely tie into robotics,” Burchfield said. It takes a fabricator from weld preparation to welding assembly, providing insights into gas control, productivity, documentation, and where they are reducing waste, Burchfield added.

ESAB’s product breakthroughs in automation and robotic applications go a long way toward supporting fabricators as they tackle the ever-present challenge of finding skilled workers. The American Welding Society has stated the demand for welding professionals in upcoming years will require 320,500 new welding professionals by 2029, meaning 80,000 welding jobs need to be filled annually between this year and 2029.

To that end, ESAB’s U.S.-based Future Fabricators program, among its many workforce initiatives and education partnerships, provides tools, equipment, scholarships, training and educational materials to train future fabricators. “We are doing this from high schools to four-year engineering programs across America,” Burchfield said. “We are committed to teaching or supplying or outfitting our future fabricators because we know it is important. Whether it is welding done manually or with a robot or cobot, we need to be a player in all these spaces and help address the issue.”

Right off the bat, beginning welders will find ESAB’s equipment is intuitive and simple to use, modeled in tablet and smart phone formats and applications. Simplicity is built in the company’s highly engineered, precise and quality equipment to improve a shop’s overall performance.

The Future Fabricators program also sponsors the Western Welding Academy’s “Blue Collar Tour,” which is a 60-day nationwide effort to reach high school students regarding skilled trade careers. This year’s tour reached a total of 3,180 high school students and impacted others through social media videos that have millions of views. “They brought it to the kids through social media and made welding cool again with events that have the type of energy you’d find at a state fair or rodeo,” said Justin LaFond, an applications engineer with ESAB. “We’re making a huge impact by doing things differently.”

Global Powerhouse with Local Focus

Burchfield echoes that sentiment. “While we are globally innovating from the R&D and product management standpoint, as a manufacturer, 80% of our manufacturing is done in region, for region,” he said. “It mitigates some of those shocks that other companies have to absorb. More specifically, we’ve been optimizing our footprint and streamlining supply chains over the last few years to build capacity.”

ESAB has more than 30 manufacturing plants and R&D facilities, ensuring secure and resilient supply chains in a dynamic and ever changing global trade market. “This footprint allows us to serve our customers more effectively,” Burchfield added.

Fabricators don’t need to take ESAB’s word for it when it comes to innovative and breakthrough fabrication equipment. ESAB’s product designs have been recognized by the Red Dot Design Awards, which recognize design quality in industrial products. Three of the welding machines in the “Ultimate Line-Up” received 2024 Red Dot Design Awards based on product design. The winning products are: the Renegade VOLT ES 200i; the Rustler EM PRO series of industrial welders; and the Rogue EMP 210 PRO. (ESAB was previously recognized with a Red Dot Design Award for the product design of the Renegade TIG power source and RobustFeed wire feeder.)

“To win not just one but three awards speak to our culture of product innovation that goes back 120 years to ESAB’s founding in 1904,” Flavio Santos, vice president of global products for ESAB, said at the time of the awards.

Not only that, but the awards also spotlight ESAB’s commitment to designing and building quality, precise and easy-to-use fabrication equipment to shape the future of metal fabrication.

www.ESABcorporation.com

Carrying on a Legacy of Innovation

In 1904, Swedish engineer Oscar Kjellberg produced the world’s first coated welding electrode, a heavily fluxed electrode that substantially improved the quality of weld metal, and, with that, Elektriska Svetsnings-Aktiebolaget (ESAB) was born in Gothenburg, Sweden. Today, the company is comprised of more than 40 global and regional brands, with a presence in 147 countries. In recent years, ESAB has increasingly focused on corporate sustainability initiatives, and is committed to a 50% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by 2035, as well as sourcing 50% of its global electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030. Currently, three of ESAB’s manufacturing facilities utilize 100% renewable energy, including its renovated operation in Denton, Texas, and two facilities located in Brazil.

In addition to measures that foster sustainability, ESAB’s corporate giving program contributes to causes that matter most to its local communities, including workforce development and inclusion efforts. One program is the Future Fabricators initiative in the United States, which provides scholarships, tools, equipment and welding expertise within local communities. In Europe, ESAB supports the Ore Projects by providing both PPE equipment and mentoring, including free metal fabrication training for youths, with a focus on the growing number of women who are taking up welding in Britain. Echoing ESAB’s new “Without Limits” tagline, these endeavors are added to the tagline “Shaping the World We Imagine,” where advanced welding solutions drive progress and sustainability.

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