The 2026 AWS Welding Automation Exposition and Conference Highlights Automation’s Expanding Role in American Manufacturing

The labor math in American manufacturing is unforgiving. There are 477,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs (https://www.industryselect.com/blog/hiring-trends-in-the-us-manufacturing-sector) and 80,000 welding jobs to fill annually (weldingworkforcedata.com). Against that backdrop, the AWS Welding Automation Exposition and Conference (WAEC), held June 4–6 in Minneapolis, Minn., drew 132 end users, integrators, technology developers, educators, and automation seekers, ranging from first-time users to major manufacturers. All wrestle with the same challenge: how to produce more with the workers available now while meeting quality specifications and safety standards. 

Chaired by Jeff Noruk of Servo Robot (https://servo-robot.com/) and Doug Rhoda of Vectis Automation (https://vectisautomation.com/), the event delivered presentations on cobot programming, AI-assisted joint tracking, vision systems, high-mix robotic welding, implementation strategy, and more. 

Automation as a Workforce Multiplier 

The session that generated the most conversation was the keynote by Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) (https://www.automate.org/). 

“Automation and robotics are critical to the future, because this is the only way American industry is going to be able to compete going forward,” Burnstein said. “We have labor shortages, we have unfilled jobs — a statistic that is getting worse over time — and we have to automate in order to compete and be able to employ more people.” 

Burnstein presented two charts that anchored the conference’s central argument. Plotting three decades of U.S. industrial robot shipments against civilian employment and unemployment, the data showed a surprising pattern (Fig. 1): When robot shipments go up, unemployment goes down. When robot shipments decline, unemployment rises. 

“I thought that was eye-opening,” said Terry Evans, senior weld manager at Nabrico Marine Products, noting the charts reframed his thinking. “I’m going to take that information back to my company and try to emphasize that robots can help strengthen the ability of our workforce to make our products better and faster.  

“The conversations I had with attendees centered on the fact that manufacturers don’t want to replace people,” said Dan Colvin, vice president, North America Robotics & Digital Solutions, ESAB. “They want to give people technology that enables them to work more efficiently.” 

Expanding What Can Be Automated 

The conference program documented a significant shift in what is automatable. Stuart Shepherd, president of Shepherd Solutions, said, “We saw a lot of people presenting solutions for very-low-volume, very-high-mix applications, and even applications with difficult fit-up. In the past, we had to walk past that type of business because we couldn’t automate it. Today, we can.” 

That shift is driven by AI-assisted vision, joint tracking, and adaptive sensor technology. Presenters described systems that scan parts, build 3D point clouds of weld joints, and plot torch position, overcoming the challenges that once made high-mix automation cost-prohibitive. 

“My big takeaway from the conferences was proper automation can be a game changer for your business and industry as a whole,” said Courtney Roberts, advanced welding manufacturing engineer, Polaris. “A lot of new developments have really made automation much easier because it adapts to things like process changes and misaligned parts. It’s just getting easier and easier as AI, seam finding, and seam tracking allow us to use automation where we couldn’t do it before. I wish the technology now was there 10 years ago. It would have made my job a lot easier.” 

“I think that there’s kind of a common thread to the presentations,” said attendee Levi Jarvi, manufacturing supervisor, Ballentine, which hosted a tour of its facility on the third day of the event. “One is that the robotics themselves are robust enough and repeatable enough. The other is having one person see a project through from concept to reality. I think you have to be invested in automation to achieve what you want it to do.” 

Planning Before Programming 

Presenter Mark Dalene, owner of Davenport Manufacturing Group, a small fabricator using automation, delivered the most memorable analogy of the event. 

“Common sense is a projection of what you think others should know,” he said. “That’s why I came up with my Rubik’s Cube analogy. Oftentimes, somebody approaches me with an idea, and it can be a really good idea, but it’s only part of the solution. What they’ve done for me is solve one side of a Rubik’s cube, handed the Rubik’s cube back to me, and assumed I have the knowledge to solve the other five sides. That’s an equation for frustration.” 

Other presenters were equally candid about where automation fails. Steve Wise, vice president of the welding division at Midwest Engineering Systems, stated, “Where projects break down is in the surrounding framework.” Before talking to an integrator, fabricators need to address issues related to fit-up, tolerance stacking, procedure qualification, and internal ownership. 

“Pre-planning for success is a key element to any automation project, and usually that starts with identifying stakeholders and the goals of those stakeholders,” added Kyle Anderson, Regional Manager at Vectis Automation. “Stated and measurable goals are more important than an equipment spec when looking for an automation solution.” 

Connecting the Automation Community 

For AWS Executive Director and CEO Carey Chen, who gave a keynote speech on the second day, the conference demonstrated something the technical content alone cannot provide. 

“I think the importance of our AWS conferences is really joining people together,” said Chen. “Even though a lot of the folks that attend and present at these conferences compete with each other in the marketplace, when we come together at a conference, we’re all family and work collaboratively for the betterment of the entire industry, and that’s super powerful.” 

Conference co-chair Doug Rhoda noted that the event delivered value across the full experience spectrum: first-timers left with frameworks they had not had before, and veterans encountered new possibilities enabled by technologies that have finally matured. 

This article was written by Jeff Noruk (Servo Robot, WEAC co-chair) for the American Welding Society.