Spot Welding Parameter Tuning for Weld Defect Prevention in Automotive Production Lines: An ML-Based Approach

Spot welding is a critical joining process which presents specific challenges in early defect detection, has high rework costs, and consumes excessive amounts of materials, hindering effective, sustainable production. Especially in automotive manufacturing, the welding source’s quality needs to be controlled to increase the efficiency and sustainable performance of the production lines. Using data analytics, manufacturing companies can control and predict the welding parameters causing problems related to resource quality and process performance. In this study, we aimed to define the root cause of welding defects and solve the welding input value range problem using machine learning algorithms. In an automotive production line application, we analyzed real-time IoT data and created variables regarding the best working range of welding input parameters required in the inference analysis for expulsion reduction. The results will help to provide guidelines and parameter selection approaches to model ML-based solutions for the optimization problems associated with welding.