Analysis and implementation of remote support for ESAB’s welding systems : using WeldPoint and web services

Abstract: This thesis was written on behalf of ESAB Research and Development department, in LaxåSweden. One of ESAB’s product areas is developing various welding systems.Today if ESAB’s customers experience a problem with one of their welding systems they callESAB’s service center. If the problem seems to have been caused by software, or if it requireslog files to be analyzed, ESAB needs a way to get this system information from the customer’swelding system to ESAB’s employees.One of the goals with this project thesis was to perform an analysis answering how the systeminformation should be sent, stored and what unit in the customer’s welding system that shouldsend it. Another goal was to implement the solution that the analysis presented.The analysis shows that WeldPoint in combination with a web service is the best way to sendthe system information from the customer’s welding system. WeldPoint is a PC control and logsoftware connected to the customer’s welding system. A web service provides a serviceinterface enabling clients to interact with a web server. Clients communicate with the webservice using HTTP, this means that clients can easily communicate across firewalls and othernetwork obstacles.The thesis work resulted in three different applications written in C#.NET. The first applicationis a simple form called WeldPoint Remote Support (WRS). This form extracts customerinformation, welding system information and log files from the customer and the customer’swelding system. All this information is called a case. The case is received by ESAB using thesecond application, WeldPoint Web service (WWS). WWS stores the received case in adatabase. The third application is called WeldPoint Remote Support Center (WRSC). Thisapplication is used by the ESAB employee’s to view the case sent from the customer’s weldingsystem.The above implementation has been tested and supports a robust and secure way to send andview the system information from the customer’s welding system. The conclusions showed thatall goals and requirements set by ESAB were met.