Client
Nauta Heeg
Location
Heeg
Specialisation
Processing complex steel constructions
Employees
51-100
Beginning 150 years ago with horse shoeing and small fencing projects, Nauta Heeg started as a traditional village blacksmith.
In the village of Heeg, the company evolved into a modern industrial enterprise. Nauta Heeg specializes in complex steel structures for heavy utility construction, hydraulic engineering, and the industrial sector. Besides these structures, Nauta Heeg also works on mooring structures, equipment construction, and water-related engineering projects, catering to both national and international markets.
With a team of around forty to fifty employees and a flexible auxiliary workforce, they daily strive to provide high-quality solutions to their clients. Nauta Heeg is part of the GB Steel Group, which includes Kampstaal, Kamplacon, MF Emmen, and Vossebelt, each with its own specialization within the steel industry.
Together in search of the solution
In collaboration with Vossebelt, Nauta Heeg started implementing a welding robot. The initial goal was to optimize the process of automated welding of brackets for mooring works, but after some time, the robot proved to be too complex. They decided to seek an alternative solution, and soon considered the cobot (collaborative robot) for its user-friendliness and accessibility for the employees.
The cobot isn't very complicated, and you can use it in many ways."
The inspiration for this choice partly came from their sister company Kampstaal, which already uses two cobots from WeCobot. This led to organizing an on-site workshop at Nauta Heeg. During this workshop, we explored how to use the cobot and discussed its capabilities. Due to the variety in projects, they needed a more extensive software package with features like multi-layer welding. Together with the welders, the cobot was tested in combination with their own products.
It quickly became clear that buying a cobot was the ideal solution for Nauta Heeg. According to Wilfred de Jager, project leader at Nauta Heeg, the welds are very precise, and the quality is consistently high with features, such as the Weave Weld Feature, Touch Sensing Feature and Seam Tracking Feature. Due to these positive experiences, the cobot was immediately purchased and is now used for various projects, with plans to scale up this implementation.
I just saw that the guys could immediately handle it well and work with it."
Innovation as a guideline
Nauta Heeg aims to continue innovating in their field. In the future, they plan to further automate their production process. The cobot, serving as a tool, creates a perfect synergy between human and machine. “There’s a possibility that we might add a second cobot. That’s something you can see happening at our sister company.
