Audi’s latest project will see artificial intelligence examine spot welds at plants in Brussels and Ingolstadt
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Audi continues to embrace artificial intelligence as the company has begun rolling out a system that uses AI for quality control.
According to the automaker, the latest project uses artificial intelligence to examine spot welds in car bodies. Audi didn’t go into many specifics, but said the AI was successfully developed and tested in Neckarsulm.
It apparently made quite an impact as the company was able to analyze “around 1.5 million spot welds on 300 vehicles each shift.” Before the use of AI, employees had to use ultrasound equipment to manually check approximately 5,000 spot welds per vehicle. That sounds exhausting just thinking about it.
More: Audi Is Using AI To Design The Wheels Of The Future
Using AI is far more efficient and Audi said it will enable them to control quality in a more targeted way. Employees have also been freed up to “focus on possible anomalies,” although their will undoubtedly be concerns about possible job losses in the future.
Following the successful pilot program, the AI will be put to use at three other facilities by the end of the year. These include Audi plants in Brussels and Ingolstadt as well as Volkswagen’s Emden facility. However, this isn’t as easy as installing some software as the automaker noted a team of experts has to retrain the AI model to identify differences in weld settings at the various plants.
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Since there are currently no standards or certifications for AI applications, the automaker coordinated with the German Association for Quality (DGQ), the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), and the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA). That’s a bit of a wrinkle, but Audi says AI can be used to optimize other processes in the future.
