After Delivery: How We Handle Service And Spare Parts

After Delivery: How We Handle Service and Spare Parts

A welding machine is bought once and maintained for years, and the maintenance half of that relationship is decided long before the first fault. Most of what makes after-sales support work is unglamorous: naming the parts that wear, keeping the ones that stop production, and making sure a service request does not begin with a week of emails asking what the machine is.

This is how we organise the after-delivery side at PDKJ: what fails first, what we agree to keep on the buyer shelf, and how a request actually moves through our team.

One of our robot welding cells being commissioned at a customer plant, with the engineer working at the cell.

What Actually Fails First

On a resistance machine, the wear is concentrated at the working end: electrode caps, shanks and the cables and water hoses that flex every cycle. On a laser machine it is the protective lens, the nozzle and the feed that carries wire or shielding gas. In both cases the parts that fail are the parts that work hardest, and they fail on a schedule set by duty cycle rather than by calendar age.

The working end of a twin-head spot welding machine: electrode caps and shanks, the air lines and the water hoses that flex on every cycle.

This is why a spare parts conversation that starts with "what is your price list" tends to end badly. The right starting point is what the machine will be doing: how many spots per part, what material, how many shifts. That answer decides which two or three items matter and which can be ordered when needed.

The Wear Part List We Agree Before Shipment

Every custom machine ships with a spare parts list carrying part numbers, and we ask the buyer to confirm quantities before the crate closes. The list below is the structure we use; the items that matter most shift with the process.

How a Service Request Moves

The sequence below is the one we ask buyers to follow, because skipping the first step is what turns a two-day fix into a two-week one.

1. Send the machine serial number, the programme number and a photograph or short video of the joint, not a description of the symptom alone.
2. We check the request against the as-built file: drawing revision, test record and the spare parts list that shipped with that serial number.
3. If the cause is parameters or programme, we answer remotely with the settings to restore. If it is a wear part, we quote and dispatch from stock.
4. If it is mechanical or optical and cannot be confirmed from images, we scope an on-site visit with a written description of what will be checked.
5. The case closes with a record: what was changed, what was measured afterwards, and what to watch next.

What We Hold and What We Order

We keep fast-moving wear items for the machine types we build most, because those are the parts whose absence stops a line. Laser sources, controllers and drives are a different question: they are reliable, expensive and slow to obtain, so holding them for every model would be capital sitting on a shelf.

What matters is that the buyer knows which is which before the order, not after a failure. If a controller is not held, the honest statement is a lead time, and that lead time belongs in the maintenance plan rather than in a surprise email.

Remote Diagnosis: What It Can and Cannot Do

Remote support works well on anything the machine can report: alarm codes, programme parameters, current and force traces, gas or cooling faults. It works badly on anything that has to be seen or felt, such as electrode alignment, fixture wear, a contaminated lens or a cable that is failing internally.

Knowing the difference saves time on both sides: a photograph of the weld and the programme number settles most process questions in one exchange, while "it welds badly" settles none.

What We Ask Buyers to Answer Early

These five answers decide the spare parts list, the service model and the response time we can commit to.

• Duty: how many parts per shift, and how many shifts per day.
• Material and coating, because they set how fast the electrodes or the lens degrade.
• Who will do first-line maintenance locally, and whether they can change a lens or a cap.
• Site constraints: power quality, compressed air and cooling water, since these cause faults that look like machine faults.
• A spares budget for the first year, so the recommended kit is realistic rather than aspirational.

Conclusion

After-sales support is mostly decided at the order stage. The parts that wear are predictable, the information needed to diagnose a fault is predictable, and the difference between a two-day repair and a two-week one is usually whether the buyer part, the serial number and the wear parts were dealt with before the machine left here.

Requirements vary by destination market. Always confirm against the current edition of the applicable standard and with your certification body.

PDKJ continues to provide customized laser welding and resistance welding solutions based on different materials, workpiece structures, welding requirements, and production applications.

Related Products

• Spot Welding Machines
• Laser Welding Machines

Machines on our assembly floor before dispatch, where the spare parts list is agreed with the buyer.

Contact PDKJ

Send us your part drawing or a sample, and our engineers will run a welding feasibility trial on your own material and recommend the equipment configured for your application.