Prospect Steel, U.S.A.
Interview with Patrick Schueck
“Prospect Steel, prior to purchasing the Zeman was in a severe shortage of labour. We have plenty shop capacity from the standpoint of space and equipment but we were lacking our ability in man-hours to produce the welding and the fitting and the painting required to have a successful project so it was really limiting our ability to be a force in the marketplace.
“The Zeman acquisition has allowed us to further advance what we think is cutting-edge and that is taking loading information and fit-up information from the model to directly to our shop. All that has allowed us to increase our productivity decrease feed off errors.
“By purchasing the Zeman we were capable of replacing man-hours that we had lost by not being able to find qualified fitters and welders in our industry. The Zeman gives us another approach to be able to solve the huge problem in the steel fabrication business of finding labor. Prospect Steel on a Zeman SBA compact plus system as it was the best fit in our shop as far as size and scope went but we also felt like for the price the payback was the fastest. The SBA really works in our system just as a fitting robot. So rather than fitting and welding we’re able to utilize the fitting services of the robot get the pieces out of the Machine get them back on the box and let our welders do the welding which allows us to work more, generate more man-hours allows us to cover moreover. I think anytime you put a group of professionals together and we’re all kind of held in the ring together and we work together in a collaborative way. We’re able to come up with real solutions to real problems. That’s the definition of success.”