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10X Your Production With a Welding Cobot? DeAngelo Marine Did It, With Immediate ROI!
DeAngelo Marine was buried in orders and stuck with slow TIG welding. Then they got a Cobot Welder from Hirebotics and instantly 10X’d their production speed. That’s not a typo.
Catherine Bernier
May 28, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
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DeAngelo Marine has been building top-tier exhaust systems for yachts, commercial ships, and even naval vessels for over 40 years. Their quality standards are sky-high (literally aerospace standards).
However, labor shortages, huge orders, and long weld times were sabotaging their delivery ETAs.
They knew it was time to explore automation.
But as it turned out… Finding the right system for automated welding wasn’t as straightforward.
First, they had to go through some disappointing demos from various welding suppliers. But in the end, they found their game-changer: the Hirebotics Cobot Welder, based on a Universal Robots arm and powered by the Beacon app.
What followed… Is a story of unbelievable transformation (10X welding speed) and near-immediate ROI.
Cobot Brand | Supplier | Application |
|---|---|---|
Universal Robots | Hirebotics | Welding |
The Key Problems | How the Cobot Was Implemented | The Results |
Slow TIG weld speeds, labor shortages, and rising order volume. | Hirebotics’ MIG welding cobot with a UR arm integrated into their fab workflow. | 10X welding speed, fast ROI, cleared order backlog, ready to scale up with more cobots. |
The Challenge: Increasing Output With a Labor Shortage
Labor shortages were hammering their production capacity. Orders were piling up from top-tier yacht builders and naval clients. Their welders were stuck moving at a crawl with slow manual TIG welds.
At one point, they were 65 days behind on lead times.
They needed help yesterday, but it was impossible to scale. Naturally, automation felt like the answer.
Why Cobot Welding And Why Hirebotics?
DeAngelo Marine didn’t just jump at the first shiny automation pitch.
They tried working with seven different big-name welding suppliers.
The results? Disappointing.
Poor welds made during the demonstration process of other robotic welding providers. Image Source.
That doesn’t mean that other providers don’t have quality solutions. But they weren’t a match made in heaven for DeAngelo.
"I had sent out parts to about seven of the big welding companies to see if they can do a demo weld says and a lot of those companies struggled to send me back parts that match our quality."
However, after getting in touch with Universal Robots… As the last effort before “being ready to give up…” DeAngelo were referred to Hirebotics.
Hirebotic’s Cobot Welder incorporates the cobot arm from Universal Robots and their proprietary Beacon smartphone app for effortless teaching. So, the user quite literally “programs” the cobot by using an app that’s in many ways less complex than social media.
DeAngelo CEO with their welding team, inspecting the Hirebotics Cobot Welder and produced parts. Image Source.
After DeAngelo saw Hirebotics recreate perfectly welded parts… The rest was history.
Ease of use
Excellent welding output
And drastically faster welding were the primary reasons why DeAngelo chose Hirebotics.
From 2 Inches To 20 Inches Per Minute: One Order ROI
Manual TIG welding? 2 to 5 inches per minute if you’re really good.
The Hirebotics’ MIG cobot welder? 20 inches per minute. Consistently.
That’s a 10x speed increase overnight. Switching from TIG to automated MIG was the best decision they could’ve made.
The Hirebotics Cobot Welder in action. Image Source.
In fact, when they received a massive Coast Guard order the day the cobot hit the floor, the numbers were crystal clear:
Manual TIG weld: 200 inches = ~100 minutes
Cobot weld: 200 inches = ~10 minutes
That one order paid for the entire cobot system. In one shot.
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The Wins Stacked Across The Board
The cobot didn’t just crush the welding speed.
It also:
Helped DeAngelo catch up their entire backlog in just days
Freed up their highest-paid fabricators for complex work
Reduced weld defects
Opened the door to break into brand-new OEM markets
Boosted employee morale and made welding fun again
And all of this without hiring new staff or using complex software.
“We still have World War II machines running every day on our production floor. So just the thought of a “ROBOT” would be enough to send some of our folks to a therapist,” says CEO Justin Montes. “But the ease of use is truly remarkable. Within 20 minutes of uncrating our cobot, we were running parts.”
Learn more about DeAngelo success and the Hirebotics’ Cobot Welder on the links below:
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Enjoy your week!
The Cobot Spotlight Team