Kemppi helps Jayben Group meet exacting welding quality standards
With its head office in Tasmania and manufacturing plants in both Tasmania and South Australia, Jayben Group is an OEM company that specialises in powertrain products and light to medium industrial plant and equipment, including design, engineering, and manufacturing for the mining, agricultural, manufacturing, and defence sectors. Since its humble beginnings in 1927, the company has evolved significantly and today, it services clients both nationally and overseas. Determined to continue to provide clients with first-rate products, the company trialled Kemppi’s WeldEye welding management software before fully implementing the solution to effectively control welding quality.
The challenge
According to Danny Patmore, Fabrication Manager at Jayben Group, the company was not willing to forego quality despite experiencing strong growth. “Since our earliest days, we have been committed to producing high-quality products, and even though we have rapidly expanded, we remain unwavering in ensuring that quality is integral in all stages of the production process, including welding.
“Welding is fundamental when you are manufacturing the sorts of parts and equipment that we produce in steel, stainless steel, aluminium and other metals. If the quality in the welds is not there, it will threaten the integrity of the component or machine, so it’s absolutely critical that we get it right.
“We were already using a fleet of standard mig machines and have an experienced team of six welders, but we had no way of objectively monitoring and managing the quality of our welding output and were canvassing the market for a tool that could help us do this, when we came across Kemppi’s WeldEye.”
The solution
WeldEye is a universal solution for managing welding production. It enables you to control all aspects of the welding process, including welding procedures, welder and inspector qualifications, documentation, reporting, and administration. It also gives you 100% traceability to any weld made within your operation. The WeldEye cloud-based software solution fits any size and type of organisation and lets you manage any welding equipment regardless of the brand.
Danny explained that one of the key factors that WeldEye appealed to Jayben was that the software works with any brand of welder. “WeldEye was attractive because it can be used with any welding brand and we had already made a significant investment in our fleet of existing mig welders. They were still fit for purpose, so we wanted to make them part of the overall solution rather than have to go out buy new equipment.”
WeldEye also appealed to Jayben because it could provide the team with live data monitoring capability which would allow them to track quality and make any corrections in real-time. “WeldEye purportedly let you monitor welding quality as the welds were laid down and would flag any issues. If this was the case, this would be extremely useful for us because it would mean detecting any critical welding deviations in the production phase,” said Danny.
On the face of it, WeldEye appeared extremely viable but it was not until the team looked at the various features of the software in detail, and actually rigorously trialled the solution, that they were convinced of its value.
The benefits of WeldEye
“WeldEye is impressive,” says Danny. “Not only does it work with any combination of welding brands, it lets you monitor live welding data to ensure consistency and verify welding quality. What’s more, if you need to produce qualitative data and reports for quality assurance for customers, this can be done at the touch of a button. And when new staff come on board, WeldEye helps us to quickly get a feel for their welding ability and provide upskilling if required.”
WeldEye’s versatility also makes managing welding procedure specifications (WPS) and welder qualifications more efficient as all the information is stored in the one place. The WPSs can be created quickly using templates and personnel qualifications are easily accessible, as they are conveniently centralised.
Since installing WeldEye, Jayben has been able to effectively monitor welding quality as well as boost productivity across its entire welding production. “WeldEye has confirmed that we are meeting quality requirements and given us added confidence in our work. The ability to rectify any deviations in real-time is also invaluable as it saves us precious time so that we can do more,” explained Danny.
Thanks to its continued growth, particularly in defence work, and the incorporation of aluminium fabrication, Jayben has expanded its original fleet of welders to include the Kemppi X5 FastMig, X5 FastMig Pulse, MasterTig and the A7 Mig welder power source.
“Today, WeldEye helps us manage all of our welding equipment, including our robotic welder, the Kemppi A7, and verify compliance of WPSs to facilitate quality control. In the case of our defence work, WeldEye is absolutely critical as it helps us demonstrate welding production compliance with the requirements of the AS/NZS ISO 3834 quality standard,” said Danny.
“There’s no doubt that WeldEye has helped us overcome the challenge of ensuring quality control in our welding work. Installing the software was seamless and painless, and the customer support and training provided by Kemppi is proactive and excellent. Using the software from the convenience of the WeldEye dashboard is now second nature to us. If welding quality is important to you, I would recommend it in the blink of an eye,” added Danny.