JD Rail Solutions are a WA manufacturing success story. For over 50 years this family business has provided rail track service and maintenance to the mining and transport industries across the globe.
With WA’s well documented staff shortages, JD’s GM Stephen Hughes spoke with Auto Control Systems to investigate if our robotic welding solution could assist with the production of the saddles enabling them to deliver a crucial overseas project.
The robotic solution has been in operation at JD Rail for over 3 months, so we thought it was the right time to drop in for a chat with Stephen to see how the robot is performing.
Set-Up
Following the included standard training session, JD’s team were able to easily program the system.
Performance
Previously JD were producing 15-20 saddles per day.
With the robotic solution they are now producing 15 per hour.
ROI
After 1.5 months the output from the robotic solution had covered the initial investment.
Workforce Impacts
Robotic solutions aren’t designed to replace a company’s workforce. By undertaking the more simple and repetitive tasks they allow skilled workers to be deployed to more complex tasks. As in JD’s case this has resulted in significantly increased productivity across the board. With the current workforce shortages WA is facing this has allowed JD to continue to win and deliver large projects both here and overseas.
