OVERCOMING INSPECTION SKILLS BOTTLENECKS IN AUTOMOTIVE
BY NICOLAS LACHAUD BANDRES, VP INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS, HEXAGON’ S MANUFACTURING INTELLIGENCE DIVISION
Defects are costly in automotive. Subject to rigorous regulation and standards, everyone in the industry is aware that the failure to detect flaws and faults has the potential for catastrophic consequences or costly recall programmes.
But as time to market is squeezed, manufacturers are running into significant quality inspection bottlenecks which need to be resolved through more advanced solutions that can be set up and run without requiring high levels of metrology skills. Prevailing challenges in this area are inhibiting the ability of automotive manufacturers to adapt to change and drive operational efficiency.
In Europe this is exacerbated where brownfield plants and slow adoption of new processes all too often hinder competitiveness. A report by McKinsey found that European automakers have lost over 13 percentage points in global market share since
2017. While tech companies in the US and China have embraced automation and innovations for EV production, many European automakers are struggling to keep pace.
As masters of high-volume automated assembly lines, leading automotive players have been working to improve the speed and efficiency of quality inspections to minimise costs. They have now refocused significant effort on automating quality control processes, helping them accelerate the introduction of new models while maintaining their renowned quality standards.
Automation demands efficient defect scanning
Market researchers estimate the market for industrial metrology will grow globally to $ 19bn in 2030, driven by high precision automation, cloud-based, AI-assisted
12 AUTOMATION, CONTROL & ENGINEERING