Meet the Prodevco: The Robotic Backbone of CMF Durham

One more look inside our new Durham location before the big reveal.

We’ve been teasing our new Durham location for a few weeks now. Before we pull back the curtain, here’s one more look inside. Meet our Prodevco, the robotic backbone of the new shop.

The photo shows the cell from overhead. A length of steel sits on the infeed, the robot is poised beside it, and the safety enclosure surrounds the whole work area. It doesn’t look like much at rest. Once it starts running, it does work that used to take a skilled fabricator a long time with a tape, soapstone and a torch.

What the Prodevco does

Prodevco builds robotic plasma cutting cells made for structural steel fabricators. Raw steel goes in, and the robot cuts, copes, puts holes in and marks it in one continuous process.

It works on all four faces of a piece without anyone having to flip or reposition it by hand. That covers the shapes a structural shop handles every day:

• Wide flange beams

• Channels and angles

• Hollow structural sections (square and rectangular tube)

• Round tube

Copes, notches, bolt holes and layout marks are all programmed ahead of time from the shop drawings. The robot then carries them out the same way on every piece.

Why it matters

When a piece is laid out by hand, its quality depends on the person, the day and how many pieces came before it. Even a good fabricator can be off by a little on the hundredth beam. On a jobsite, a little is the difference between bolting up and field-fixing.

A robotic cell takes that variation out. Every cope, hole and mark lands where the drawing says it should, and the hundredth piece matches the first. For our customers, that means steel that fits when it reaches the site. Erectors spend their time erecting instead of reworking, and schedules hold.

It also frees up our people. Our skilled fabricators can spend their time fitting and welding, where their experience counts most, instead of measuring and marking.

Part of a bigger story in Durham

The Prodevco is one of the reasons we’re so excited about Durham, but it’s only part of the story. The new location expands what Carolina Metal Fabricators can take on, alongside our Raleigh facility. Putting automation at the start of the process sets everything after it up to run smoothly.

We’re not giving it all away yet. The full reveal is coming soon.

Stay tuned

Follow Carolina Metal Fabricators on LinkedIn for Cool Pic Friday every week and for the Durham reveal when it lands.

Have a structural steel project coming up? Contact our team to talk through what you need. We’d be glad to show you what Raleigh and Durham can do together.