Weldflow

Background

The heavy fabrication industry is facing challenges.  Demand is increasing, weld complexity is increasing and economic pressure from clients to lower costs.  The shift from building oil platforms to wind turbine jackets is driving this change.  Manual welding is not a sustainable option due to skilled worker shortages, productivity and quality limitations.  Current robotic solutions are also unsuitable because they are expensive, require large, permanent indoor space and have no remote support.

The Solution

Weldflow is a mobile robotic welding solution powered by cloud artificial intelligence. My task was to create an infographic that clearly described the concept to our venture board.

I stared with pen and paper sketches to get the right visual elements, content and specifications. I worked with subject matter experts confirm the content and a team of three other designers to produce the final illustration.

Preliminary pen and paper sketches of the infographic to describe the solution

Infographic Design

Welding defects are the number one cause of fabrication delays
Robotic welding exists, but it is almost unfeasible for large scale fabrication
Mounting an intelligent welding robot onto the structure makes robotic welding cheaper faster and more feasible
Robots will need to scan the weld for proper fit

The most challenging part of the illustration was rendering the robot correctly. I used several reference photos to partially trace and partially re-create the welding robot. My design team optimized the layout and styled the page. It was an exciting infographic to work on that engaged the whole team.

As the robot welds, it adapts to the subtle imperfections in materials and measurements