Deburring Work Autonomous Robot Eliminates Grinding Bottlenecks

An autonomous grinding robot tackles heavy manual labor and meets the need for consistent quality in steel structures for bridge construction.

In bridge construction, tight deadlines, strict quality standards and high volumes leave no room for delays. Canam-Bridges, a leading North American bridge builder, supplies steel structures for bridges across Canada and the USA. Handling complex projects with numerous cutting and grinding processes put the team under pressure. Repeated deburring, heavy manual labor and the need for consistent quality led to a production bottleneck. To meet the schedule, increase safety and scale efficiently, Canam-Bridges implemented the Easy Grinder, an autonomous grinding robot from Teqram. 

Bridge Construction Leaves No Room For Delays

Quality and on-time delivery are essential for bridge projects. Canam-Bridges often carries out several major projects simultaneously under high time pressure. "Product quality, site management and adherence to deadlines are crucial factors in each of our projects," says Mathieu Larouche, Project Engineer at Canam-Bridges. This pressure prompted Canam-Bridges to take a closer look at its internal processes, particularly in the areas of cutting and deburring.

Manual Deburring Reached Its Limits 

Canam-Bridges processes around 300 tons of plasma and oxy-fuel cut parts every week. After cutting, the parts are transported to the grinding stations, where slag is removed, edges of up to 2 mm are rounded, oxide layers are removed, the heat-affected zone on the cut edges is ground and gates are removed. "At times, 16 to 18 grinding technicians were working in three shifts," explains Mathieu. "That was no longer scalable. Manual deburring made it difficult to meet deadlines and work on several projects at the same time." The work itself was also physically demanding and involved a lot of dust and dirt. Canam-Bridges needed a more modern solution.

Canam-Bridges set a clear goal: reduce manual grinding, improve consistency and develop a scalable process without additional physical strain. "With the Easy Grinder, all small and medium-sized parts are now processed fully automatically," says Mathieu. "Where we used to need two to three grinding technicians to remove the heat-affected zone, now only one person is mainly responsible for the logistics and fine-tuning of the robot." 

Consistent Quality, Layer by Layer

Consistent quality was a key requirement, and the Easy Grinder has fulfilled it. "The Easy Grinder always delivers the same high quality," says Mathieu. "In the beginning, it was sometimes even too perfect. We adjusted some parameters to increase the production quantity, as the result was better than required for certain surface treatments."

The Easy Grinder was quickly accepted by the team. "The new colleague was very well received," says Mathieu. "The EasyGrinder really makes the work easier. No heavy lifting, much less physical strain. That was important, because grinding the same part for a whole week is hard work. Automation makes a real difference."
 

Programming Superfluous

One of the biggest advantages for Caban-Bridges is the 3D vision system Easy Eye . "It was a real revelation. You don't need any programming, even for complex parts. That's a big win for us," says Mathieu. This flexibility ensures a fast and efficient deburring process, especially with constantly changing part geometries. Even small batches and individual parts can be produced efficiently and with minimal effort.

During the project, the layout of the robot cell changed several times at the customer's request, even shortly before delivery. "We asked for changes at short notice and even requested delivery two weeks earlier," recalls Mathieu. "The Teqram team was very flexible and we really appreciated that. It had no impact on the schedule and everything was delivered on time."

The speed of the Easy Grinder exceeded our expectations. "We were surprised at how quickly the robot was able to process all the parts," says Mathieu. "We had to reschedule the cutting department to ensure a continuous supply to the Easy Grinder." Deburring was no longer the limiting factor in production.

Today, the Easy Grinder is a stable and scalable part of Canam-Bridges' deburring process for small and medium-sized parts. Larger components are still processed manually, but future automation is already being considered. "We are definitely looking into automating larger parts as well," concludes Mathieu. "The Easy Grinder has shown us that this approach really works."

* Specialist for automation in sheet metal processing, Teqram B.V.