Originally Posted by
ward00
What the video shows is that they weld the frame by hand, that's a step that Helix eliminates, saving time and $$$ (if the cost of the robot is ignored) - anyone want to concede that by eliminating expensive labor with the robot that's why they can make the whole operation pencil out. Much of everything else I can wager can be done with south of the US workers.
Yes, robot welding will probably save labor costs. But what the video show is that there are a lot of steps needed to build the frame and that welding, even done by hand, is only a small part of the effort needed to build the frame.
The manpower saved by the robot won't provide a massive cost saving (remember also that a human is still needed to install the jig in the robot and to remove the welded frame out of the robot).
Actually, I think that the biggest saving of the robot is to avoid the need of people to weld the frame, which is a very specialized/skilled/difficult to find person.