What changed when an Ohio fabricator put its welders in charge of four cobot welding cells

October 1, 2026 · 3 min read

Raymath, an Ohio contract fabricator, could not hire enough welders to keep up. It moved repetitive MIG work onto four cobot welding cells and added a cobot TIG system for aluminum. The vendor reports welding productivity up 200 percent, one part falling from 15 minutes to 5 or 6, and payback under a year.

The short answer

A multi department fabricator that could not find welders put four collaborative MIG cells and one TIG cell on the floor, and its welders now set up and supervise instead of hand welding every part. The published result is a 200 percent productivity increase on welding, described as up to four times when one operator runs multiple cells, and a payback under 12 months. The account below is the maker's own case story, so read every number as the vendor published it, not as an audited result.

What the job looked like before

Demand outran the welders Raymath could hire. Repetitive MIG weldments consumed skilled hands that were needed on harder work, and aluminum parts with difficult angles were slow. The shop was also automating CNC machine tending in the same period, so this was a company deciding to grow through automation rather than a single cell experiment.

What they put in

Four Universal Robots based cobot MIG welding cells supplied by THG Automation, plus a THG cobot TIG system with cold wire feed for aluminum. On the machining side, ProCobots machine tending cells on two Hurco CNCs. Welders program and fixture the cells and one operator can run more than one at a time.

What changed, in their numbers

Welding productivity up 200 percent, described as up to 4X when one operator runs multiple cells, a vendor claim. One aluminum part fell from 15 minutes to 5 or 6 minutes, and another from 3 to 4 minutes to 30 or 40 seconds, published by the vendor. The shop also cites a more than 600 percent machining productivity gain on the tending side, a vendor claim. Payback under 12 months, a vendor claim. Headcount and cell cost were not published.

What this does not tell you

It does not tell you the cell cost, so the payback cannot be checked. The percentage gains come from one skilled person running several machines, which only materializes if you have the person. TIG on aluminum with difficult angles is the hard end of the spectrum, so treat that result as an advanced outcome rather than a starting point. And the account says nothing about fixturing cost, which is where cobot welding projects quietly get expensive.

What to verify in your own plant

How much of your weldment mix repeats, because the fixturing and programming amortize only over repeat parts. Whether a welder on your staff wants to become the person who runs the cells. Your power supply, gas and fume extraction plans, which belong in the project alongside the robot. And the risk assessment, because an open cobot welding cell still has arc glare, fume and reach hazards to cover.

Sources: https://www.universal-robots.com/case-stories/raymath/ and https://ifr.org/case-studies/cobots-boost-production-200-on-welding-and-600-on-machine-tending

Tell Joe, the concierge on this site, what you weld and how often parts repeat. It will give you a preliminary read on whether a welding cobot fits and what an integrator will want to see before quoting.

Related on this site

The gain came from experienced welders running several cells at once, not from replacing welders. Plan who programs, fixtures and inspects before you price the hardware.

Put it to the test on your own job

Tell Joe what you are running and he will apply this to your numbers, including telling you when a robot is the wrong answer.

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