Automotive OEMs love to show off their automated body-in-white assembly lines. Commercials invariably feature dozens of six-axis robots producing showers of sparks in choreographed routines. The footage portrays the OEM as a technological leader, even if every auto plant in the world has such a line.
At Audi’s assembly plant in Neckarsulm, Germany, the body-in-white assembly line truly is a technological leader. Engineers there are using artificial intelligence (AI) to control the quality of spot welds in high-volume production.