Early September, we took part of our annual trip to the FABTECH 2025 Exposition

at the McCormick Place Convention Center, located just south of “The Loop,” in Chicago, IL.

Automation continues to dominate the topic of conversation in the manufacturing industry. The Welding Hall prevailed in the automation field, covering most of the level with robotic and cobotic integrations and simulation scenarios. Today, it seems that there is a solution for every application, and they all include using a collaborative robot assimilation. Close to ten years ago, Counterpart, Inc. dove headfirst into the robotic and cobotic welding worlds.  Since then, we have used robotic welding, cobotic welding, and robotic laser welding.

 The Fabrication Hall was on par with the automation theme. Entering the hall, we first stopped at the Trumpf demonstration area, where we ordered a part and tracked it through the entire manufacturing process. The digital tracking of parts and inclusion of AGV for WIP delivery/transport was exciting to see! Here at Counterpart, we have invested in our own smart factory with the addition of our STOPA automated storage system, including two Trumpf machines - A TruLaser Center 7030, and our most recent purchase, a TruPunch 5000. Counterpart Inc.’s latest installation in smart factory solutions plans is the expansion of our Trumpf TruTops Boost software.

TruTops  Boost, Trumpf’s flagship programming software streamlines the process of going from model, to cut parts, faster than ever before. What does this mean for Counterpart? With our latest expansion, we can now take our customer’s model from import, to nests, to ready-to-cut, in just a few hours. All the while, remaining connected to the model as a single source of truth versus using disconnected flats created through using disjointed information stored in various locations.