ESAB unveils next-generation Digital Solutions platform

Mike Pantaleano, VP Data Driven Advantage, ESAB says: "The reception in the Microsoft booth at HANNOVER MESSE to ESAB's latest online data management technology has been phenomenal." ESAB showed off new prototypes powered by Microsoft Azure IoT and utilizes the ThingWorx Industrial Innovation Platform from PTC.

Pantaleano reports that visitor comments included such statements as: "I can't believe you have this. I was going to try to build this, but now it's don", and "This is excellent. I had to come back and get more information."

ESAB's Digital Solutions platform provides several capabilities - ESAB WeldCloud, ESAB CutCloud and more to come - that connect digital ecosystems for welding and mechanised cutting, respectively. At HANNOVER MESSE with Microsoft, ESAB showcased the new architecture for ESAB's systems that allow for on-premise, hybrid and cloud-based architectures.

For welding and cutting customers, ESAB provides digital methods of documentation (required by regulation in some critical applications), better views into productivity and a much richer ability to manage their physical assets. For instance, customers can subscribe to diagnostic analytic messages about the health of their welding power source.

Caglayan Arkan, General Manager, Worldwide Manufacturing at Microsoft says: "We're pleased to see ESAB's investment in Microsoft's cloud technology to enhance its digital platform. The trusted Azure cloud platform, combined with ESAB's expertise in the welding industry, help our mutual customers tackle challenges and achieve their business outcomes even faster."

Pantaleano adds: "Moving our services platform to Microsoft Azure and entering into this collaboration with Microsoft allows us to accelerate our technology development and provides us access to a wealth of resources. Microsoft's ability to bring architects, security analysts and deep data science knowledge into a conversation makes this relationship very important to us. When you combine those capabilities with ESAB's proven welding and cutting process knowledge, it really provides our customers the ability to springboard into tangible benefits of IoT and analytics."

The Microsoft and PTC relationships are with ESAB's parent company, the Colfax Corporation, and Colfax has selected these partners to provide capabilities across their entire family of companies and to be part of its own digital transformation.

Ryan Cahalane, Vice President, Digital Growth, Colfax says: "Microsoft and PTC have a proven and flexible architecture in a wide range of production environments and deployment patterns (on-premises, cloud, hybrid), allowing us to adapt to the realities of our customers' and our own business needs. We have selected world-class partners for our solutions and will be deploying them in upcoming versions of other Colfax companies' solutions like Howden Group's UpTime digital platform."

For more information about the Digital Solutions platform, visit www.esab.com.