Job knowledge 96:

Welding Costs
Welding Costs Part I
The previous Connect article, number 95, dealt with the methods of determining
the weight of deposited weld metal in a joint,
enabling the cost of welding consumables to be
calculated.
This is obviously the first step towards calculating the
cost of actually making a welded joint but there are
many other factors that need to be considered but
which are beyond the scope of these articles.
The most significant of these costs is the overhead;
the cost of providing a welding workshop or site and
the costs of managing and running the organisation.
These costs are dependent on the accounting
practices of the organisation. They comprise factors
such as rent, rates, bank interest, cost of indirect
workers, ie those not directly involved in fabricating, depreciation of plant etc. In
addition, other accounting decisions (for example, where the costs of machining
and assembly are absorbed) may affect the decisions on which is the most cost-
effective joining method.
One of the most significant costs is that of labour and this inevitably varies with
industry, time and country. The costs mentioned above cannot generally be
influenced by the decisions made by a welding engineer. These articles will
therefore concentrate on those aspects of welding activities that are not subject to
accounting practices, overhead or labour costs.
There are many costs, other than the cost of depositing weld metal that will affect
the price of a welded fabrication.
The work done by the designer in designing the most cost-effective joint in an
item that can be placed in the most advantageous position for welding will have
major effect on costs. For example, the type of joint preparation the designer
selects; a single or double-V preparation can be flame cut, a J-preparation must
be machined and is generally far more expensive. A machined J-preparation,
however, may have less volume than a single-V, depending on thickness; will be
more accurate and therefore quicker to assemble within tolerance and may result
in a lower repair rate leading to a lower cost than the V preparation.
Costs that are directly affected by welding engineering decisions, in addition to
the cost of actually depositing weld metal, are therefore; joint preparation,
assembly time (which includes positioning in any jig or fixture and tacking),
cleaning and dressing the weld, removal from jigs or fixture, post weld heat
treatment, costs of non-destructive testing and cost of repairs.
The amount of weld metal deposited is rarely the same as the amount of filler
metal purchased. This is the result of losses when, for example, GMAW or
submerged arc welding wire is trimmed back to the contact tip, when the wire reel
runs out and the length of wire between the drive roll and the contact tip is
scrapped or the wire or reel is damaged.
Such losses tend to be quite small but this is not the case with coated electrodes.
Damaged flux coatings, incorrectly stored electrodes and the stub ends discarded
by the welder all contribute to as much as a third of the purchased weight of
manual metallic arc electrodes being scrapped. Some electrode manufacturers'

catalogues give figures for these losses which can vary depending on electrode
type and diameter.
To assist in calculating the amount of welding consumables to be purchased Table
1 gives some multiplication factors for the more common arc welding processes.
The weight of weld metal in the joint should be multiplied by this factor to give
the amount of welding consumable required. These figures assume good
housekeeping and shop floor discipline such that consumables are not wasted or
scrapped unnecessarily.

Table 1 Multiplication factor. Weight of weld metal to give the weight of
filler metal required.
Arc welding process Multiplication factor
MMA (SMAW) 1.5
TIG (GTAW) 1.1
MIG/MAG (GMAW) 1.05
Sub Arc (SAW) 1.02
FCAW 1.2
MCAW 1.1
The other consumables in this cost equation are shielding gases or flux.
The conventional shoulder height welding gas cylinder contains approximately
10,000 litres of shielding gas at a pressure of 200bar. As the gas flow rates
normally used in production are around 12 to 15 litres per minute, this typical
cylinder should provide in the region of 10 to 12 hours of welding time, allowing
for losses at the beginning and end of the arcing period.
The rate of flux consumption in submerged arc welding is approximately 1kg of
flux for every 1kg of deposited weld metal. This assumes good housekeeping and
an efficient flux recirculation system. Calculation of the amount required (and
hence the cost) of these consumables is therefore relatively straightforward.
The cost of the welder's time to weld a joint does not depend solely on the
deposition rate of the process. A most important factor in determining the time
required by the welder is what is known as the 'duty cycle' or 'operating factor'.
This is a percentage figure giving the amount of time that the arc is burning and
weld metal is being deposited versus the total time that the welder is working.
Table 2 gives some figures for the more common arc welding processes. Note that
these do NOT include set-up or assembly time and individual circumstances can
increase or decrease these figures.











Table 2 Duty cycles for arc welding processes
Arc welding process Duty cycle %
MMA (SMAW) 15 - 30
TIG (GTAW) 25 - 40
Mechanised TIG 80 - 90
MIG/MAG (GMAW) 30 - 45
Mechanised MIG/MAG 80 - 90
Sub Arc (SAW) 80 - 95
FCAW 25 - 45
Mechanised FCAW 70 - 85
MCAW 30 - 45
The lost time in this figure can be accounted for by considering all of the other
activities that the welder performs. In MMA welding, for example, time is required
for tacking, de-slagging and cleaning a weld pass, for changing electrodes, for
changing position, for rest breaks and for removal of the item from a fixture.
Similar activities need to be performed using the other welding processes.
Increasing the duty cycle is therefore one method of increasing productivity,
either by organising the shop floor such that lost time is reduced or by the use of
a higher duty cycle process. However, remember that the arcing time may well be
only a very small proportion of the total time to manufacture and attention to
other aspects of the manufacturing cycle may give better returns than simply
increasing the welding duty cycle.
Reference to Table 1 also suggests that mechanisation is one method to increase
the duty cycle. Caution needs to be exercised, however, if the total (floor to floor)
time is to be reduced. For one-off or small batch items the time taken to prepare
and set up a mechanised system to weld the item may be longer than that taken
to weld using a manual process. Note also that if a mechanised system is used,
the duty cycle may in fact decrease, as the welding speed is increased and the
weld is completed in a shorter time although the number of items welded per day
will increase. It is therefore essential to consider the complete manufacturing
cycle to achieve the most cost effective solution.






This article was written by Gene Mathers.
Copyright 2008 TWI Ltd
Information and advice from TWI and its partners are provided in good faith and based, where appropriate,
on the best engineering knowledge available at the time and incorporated into TWI's website in
accordance with TWI's ISO 9001:2000 accredited status. No warranty expressed or implied is given
regarding the results or effects of applying information or advice obtained from the website, nor is any
responsibility accepted for any consequential loss or damage.