What Is BUG-O Systems?

The Concept: BUG-O Systems Inc., a division of Weld Tooling Corporation founded in 1948, is a manufacturer of a system of drives, carriages, rails and attachments designed to automate welding guns, cutting torches and other hand held tools. The equipment's basic motion control concept was born during W.W.II as a means to help mass produce Navy ships at Higgins Industries, a shipbuilder in New Orleans. This shipyard, with the help of the original BUG-O machines, produced a record 700 boats a month. Although the product has seen several changes and updates, it continues to serve its original intention to this day and has expanded to many types of steel fabrication in addition to shipbuilding.

The Features: BUG-O Systems equipment is an inexpensive, modular, building block family of portable machines which provide precise path and constant speed control in any plane or position. These features are particularly desirable to steel fabricators as they produce the same results as a highly skilled welder.

The Benefits: Ingenious users solve fabricating problems with standard, interchangeable components, at a fraction of the cost of custom designed machines or robots. The products can more than double the productivity of semiautomatic welding equipment or cutting apparatuses with a uniform improvement in quality, appearance and distortion control. Welders become machine operators who can, without fatigue, produce better products consistently, reliably and faster than with manual welding.

The Applications: The products are used for applications such as oxy-fuel or plasma cutting and beveling, carbon arc or plasma gouging, TIG, MIG or Submerged arc welding, flame spraying and nondestructive inspection testing. The equipment is well known and used in many different types of steel fabrication industries such as shipbuilding, pressure vessel manufacturing, rail car manufacturing, structural steel fabricators, mechanical contractors, steel supply and service centers and or anyone who welds or cuts steel as part of their product or service.