Electrical cabinets

From high-volume production to single-piece, flexible solutions

Electrical cabinets, such as control cabinets, air conditioning cabinets and (stainless steel) switch boxes often have similar characteristics. The cabinets must be mainly aesthetic and of high quality. The production must be flexible to deal with different sizes so that production can be made to order and a minimum of stock is required. Due to the size of the products, ergonomics are important and logistics solutions are an important part of the machine. AWL has 30 years of experience in integrating systems that meet these needs.

Automatic welding systems

For this market segment, over the years AWL has designed and built numerous automatic welding systems. Besides the conventional joining techniques, such as spot welding and MAG welding, we have also introduced laser welding very successfully in this market.

Laser welding

Laser welding is the suitable joining method for the welding of electrical cabinets. We have successfully introduced laser welding even to customers who first wanted to have spot welding done. Laser welding of cabinets offers enormous advantages:

The corner joint is aesthetically of very high quality.
The welding process has a high speed
No post-processing is needed and it can be painted immediately.
No grinding needs to be done.
Less heat input, thus producing less thermal deformation.
Tight connections allowing a higher IP rating (international standard).

System integrator

It goes without saying that a good quality of the cabinet assembly parts is a prerequisite for successful laser welding. As a system integrator, AWL is used to working with very reputable suppliers of bending machines for these panels. We know suppliers that are able to execute the precision punching and bending of panels from coil (hot rolled steel) with the necessary quality for laser welding. We are used to integrating these bending systems into our new machines, in which the panels are supplied in the correct order.

Logistics solutions and higher automation

In addition to the coupling of our machines, you can also consider the automatic loading of the panels in our welding machine so as to achieve an even higher level of automation. Not only are these highly desirable ergonomic solutions, this is also beneficial to the accurate and error-free loading of the welding jigs. Not having to store intermediate buffers and personnel savings speaks for itself.

Logistics solutions are also conceivable with respect to the welding machine, with the automatic transport of products to and from your warehouse using, for example, Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs). Solutions for the automatic suspension and removal of products at your paint line are also possible.

High effectiveness

The success of automation stands or falls on the reliability of the installation. AWL is able to guarantee this reliability through our very stable AWL software for controlling the machine. Along with the intuitive HMI, extensive notifications and “Service Online” features, this creates very user-friendly automation with high overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).