Two Customers, One Part, Two Different Answers

Twice this year we have quoted the same bracket, in the same material, at the same thickness, and given the two buyers completely different machines. Neither of them was talked into anything. The part did not decide the answer; the volume and the variation did.

It is worth writing down, because most enquiries arrive as a drawing and a question about price, and the drawing is the least useful half of the information.

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A multi-head machine built for one part and one volume: a row of heads on a common gantry, each with its own cylinder and its own current path.

The Same Drawing, Twice

Four welds on a folded bracket, two sheets, one of them coated. On paper the two jobs are indistinguishable, and if we quoted from the drawing alone we would have offered both customers the same machine, and been wrong for one of them.

What separated them were two numbers that never appear on a drawing: how many brackets a month, and how many variants of the bracket exist.

Customer One: Forty Thousand a Month

One part, one shift pattern, three years of forecast. At that volume the cost of the machine is a rounding error next to the cost of handling. The right answer is a multi-head machine: every head set for one weld, all four fired in one stroke, the operator loads a bracket and presses two buttons.

It is an expensive machine and a boring one to run, which is the point. There is no program to lose, no axis to drift, and a change of electrode is a five-minute job that does not need a technician.

Customer Two: Three Hundred, Twelve Variants

The second customer makes the same bracket in twelve lengths, and orders arrive in batches of twenty or thirty. A four-head machine would need a setup per variant, and the setup would take longer than the batch.

Here the answer is a single-head platform machine with a fixture that takes the family, and a controller holding twelve schedules selected by number. The machine is a fraction of the price and, for this customer, it is the faster one, because the time goes into the weld and not into the changeover.

The fixture, rather than the machine, is what makes the family work. A plate with quick-change nests, one per length, costs less than a second welding head and turns a ten-minute setup into a two-minute one. On batches of twenty that difference is the entire business case.

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The other answer for the same part: a single-head platform machine, with the arms and the water-cooled holders that carry the current, and its nameplate above the frame.

Why the Cheaper Answer Was Right

It would have been easy to sell the second customer the multi-head machine. It is more impressive, the margin is better, and on a sample of one variant it would have welded beautifully. It would also have sat idle for most of the month while somebody changed fixtures.

The comparison that matters is not machine against machine. It is cost per part at the volume the customer actually has.

What differs	Forty thousand a month	Three hundred, twelve variants
Right machine	Multi-head, all welds in one stroke	Single head, fixture for the family
Where the time goes	Loading and unloading	Changeover and schedule selection
Setup per variant	Not applicable, one part only	Minutes, and it is the whole cost
What would go wrong	Paying for heads that are never re-set	Buying heads that sit idle

The Three Questions That Decide It

When a buyer sends a drawing, these are the three questions we now ask before quoting, and they change the answer more often than the drawing does.

How many parts a month, and is that figure the peak or the average?
How many variants, and how often does the line change between them?
Who sets the machine up, and how long are they allowed to take?

A buyer who answers those three gets a machine that fits. A buyer who sends only the drawing gets the machine the drawing describes, which is not always the same thing.

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