In January of this year, Air Water established a demonstration room especially provided for the welding purposes in the name of “Air Water Nagoya Welding Center” in the premises of AW Chubu head office located in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, and is now utilizing it for the sales expansion of arc welding robots and “ELNACKS” of premixed gas for welding. The center was opened as an R&D base for the welding-related business, which is the second one for researches related to welding in the wake of Wakayama Plant. 　

While Wakayama Plant mainly carries out the fundamental research for welding/cutting, the new Center seems to be something like a showroom to display welding equipment and show the effects of ELNACKS actually to visitors.　 Since the place of the center is located in the Tokai District having many automobile-related companies, the company aims to work with robot users there.

The building having an area of approx. 280 square meter consists of the space to introduce ELNACKS and the demonstration space with welding robots standing side by side. In the display space the production method and features of ELNACKS are presented by image on the screen, and actual performances are shown on the demonstration space. On the demonstration space where three FANUC robots are standing side by side, four types of power supply sources for welding made by both domestic and foreign manufacturers are provided for different uses, and demonstrations are carried out on a variety of materials from mild steel, high-tensile strength steel, stainless steel to aluminum.　
For half a year after opening in January, about 150 persons visited from more than 30 companies of mainly local gas distributors and automobile-related users. Air Water proposes solutions for welding users’ issues with a combination of welding robots and ELNACKS. Such a proposal is said to be contributing to the increase in the sales of ELNACKS and the supply by cylinders.

In the future the company puts in its sight business developments in the “non-gas field” like conveyance robots as well as welding robots, and reinforces collaboration with robot manufacturers.
Air Water says, “With the addition of welding robots there has been an increase in the number of enquiry for conveyance robots for pre/post processes, contributing to the supply record. Although we were not positively engaged in this field, we now aim to get orders for a robot system on the whole.”