ASCO Engineering

ASCO Engineering is a precision engineering and surface technology specialist based in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, with a second facility in Dubai. The installation of a KUKA robotic laser cladding system built by CNC Robotics has extended their capability, allowing ASCO to offer laser metal deposition and hard facing cladding at a level of consistency and geometric complexity that conventional processes cannot match.

ASCO's previous experience with robots for spray booths meant they understood the advantages offered in repeatability, consistent quality, and operator health and safety in high-dust, high-noise environments. Laser cladding presented a more complex challenge: the laser must be maintained as close to 90° to the surface of the part as possible at all times, across a wide variety of geometries. To solve this, CNC Robotics integrated a 4.5kW IPG Fibre Laser into a 9-axis handling system — 6-axis KUKA robot movement combined with specially designed work holding — giving the geometric freedom to process complex profiles within a single setup. A dedicated internal cladding head extends the capability, with a high-speed flash cladding option capable of hard chrome replacement.

ASCO, worked directly with the CNC Robotics team through installation and process development. Programming is handled through Orange Editor software on a laptop, which allows a new job to be set up while the current process continues to run. For repair applications, material is deposited in layers of up to 1mm per pass and ground back to the required surface finish — a process suited to the demanding components ASCO regularly works with across oil and gas, power generation, mining, and aerospace, where expensive coating materials and high component value make precision and process control critical.

For batch work, the repeatability of the robotic system is what makes it most valuable. Once the first part has been dimensionally verified and the coating surface integrity confirmed by the metallurgical lab, the robot will replicate the process identically across every subsequent part in the batch. The time each operation takes is entirely predictable, which makes scheduling straightforward and on-time delivery something ASCO can guarantee.