SubSea7 wanted to automate the aimed to prove that advanced The Outcome Benefits: welding process of underwater technology can help to seek and gas pipes. destroy defects as they occur. WELDZERO’s success will Demonstrating the viability Bringing state of the art accelerate the wider adoption of of zero defect welding using I4.0 technologies as the project digital technologies data handling into real- demonstrated the effectiveness of world manufacturing digital welding. Showing that each step of the manufacturing welding As with all advances provided by the process can not only be handled fourth industrial revolution (I4.0), digitally, but also automated within data is at the heart of it. Welding a unified platform, provided massive processes in the manufacturing incentives for manufacturers at home world create massive amounts of and abroad. How cutting edge very useful data, but without being technology benefits able to process it in a timely manner, With a diverse set of use cases Strengthening the UK’s global it lacks potency. and satisfied end users, Atlas manufacturing position welding and WELDZERO successfully Atlas enabled WELDZERO to turn demonstrated that zero defect With WELDZERO, Atlas and mountains of data into usable insight welding is an attainable goal. Not TWI aimed to eliminate defects in real-time. only that, but Atlas was able to completely. That doesn’t necessarily demonstrate that a singular platform mean that every weld will be perfect, By integrating cutting edge sensor is capable of handling defect free but it does mean that no defect will technology, direct control of welding welding for use cases as disparate as go undetected and that the process technology was realised, as well the welding of underwater gas pipes of spotting, fixing, or redoing a weld as constant and instant feedback. to minute automotive components. where a defect appears becomes That data was processed at the Increasing productivity and automated and instantaneous. edge, decreasing data handling time Next steps efficiency in manufacturing and maximising the efficiency of welding ops by up to 40% Atlas has provided a digital platform computations in the cloud. Atlas has made such a great in which WELDZERO can map and impression that we are in commercial automate not only the welding This combination of technologies discussions with two of the end users process, but also the detection of created a data rich environment where for their facilities to adopt Atlas after and reaction to defects. Using edge automation was achieved in both this project ends. sensors, 5G, edge computing, and manufacturing and quality control. the power of the cloud, the project ATLAS WORLD MAGAZINE SUMMER, 2022