Lincoln Electric Automation and JITECH Announce Global Partnership

Lincoln Electric Automation (Cleveland, OH) and JITECH Fabrication Technologies Inc. (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) recently announced a global product partnership agreement for the development of StruCIMT, a powerful 3D simulation software system. StrucCIM is designed to allow fabricators to quickly simulate and evaluate alternative methods for the automation of modern steel fabrication operations. StruCIM is a licensed trademark of JITECH. Lincoln Electric Automation is a division of The Lincoln Electric Company in Cleveland.

The agility, mobility and flexibility of robotic operations, paired with StruCIM technology, will seamlessly enable the coordination of several currently discrete operations, including cutting, coping, layout marking and welding. Using these systems, the fabrication of each individual part can be fully programmed from start to finish. These solutions will provide the structural steel fabrication industry with unprecedented automated programming and fabrication capability. The goal of the partners is to revolutionize the fabrication industry with new levels of speed and effectiveness regarding weldment design while reducing costs and project time to completion.

Under the partnership agreement, Lincoln Electric Automation will be the master integrator of StruCIM and will sell licenses and/or build custom robotic welding and cutting solutions. JITECH will develop the optimized automatic programming features for each specific work cell layout.

The four main tasks for the automated structural steel solution are:

? Recognize features such as copes, holes and welds and automatically generate tool paths 'on-the-fly' for scribing, cutting, welding and drilling.

? Recognize the sub materials associated with a member assembly and generate the tool path necessary to note their position and piece mark on the main member material.

? Quickly simulate in 3-D and evaluate alternative methods for automation.

? Use proven simulation technologies to provide easy and accurate preparation and verification of complex programming for robots and automation.

The Lincoln Electric Company is a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of arc welding products, robotic arc welding systems, fume extraction equipment and plasma and oxyfuel cutting equipment. The company holds a leading global position in the brazing and soldering alloys market.

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The Lincoln Electric Company ? Automation Division, 22221 St. Clair Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44117-2522, 888) 935-3878, www.lincolnelectric.com, [email protected] .