Patent ID: 8224881

Claim:
A system for communicating welding information, comprising: a welder comprising physical hardware that produces a weld, a user interface configured to receive an input of a wire diameter and a welding process comprising at least one of gas metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding, and flux cored arc welding, and a communication interface configured to initiate a request for a welding procedure based on the wire diameter and the welding process via the Internet; and a remote system that communicates with the welder across the Internet, the remote system comprising: a query component that identifies the wire diameter and the at least one of gas metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding, and flux cored arc welding and formulates a query for welding procedures using the wire diameter and the at least one of gas metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding, and flux cored arc welding; a search component that searches a database according to the query and finds a plurality of different welding procedures; a design of experiments component that initiates generation of a further welding procedure based on welding parameters received from the query component; and a cost calculation component that determines costs of employing at least one of the plurality of different welding procedures at different geographic locations based on different labor and overhead costs at the different geographic locations; wherein the remote system communicates the plurality of different welding procedures and the further welding procedure to the welder.