Japan's Toshiba Digital & Consulting Corporation (TDX) announced a joint project with Gestamp (Spain, the world's leading manufacturer of automotive metal components) to carry out advanced monitoring and analysis of welding of automotive chassis components. The two parties will use the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) expertise, as well as the use of camera image data and acoustic emission (AE) sensor data to ensure a highly accurate detection of weld quality, which will help improve vehicle safety .
Gestamp is one of the world's largest manufacturers of automotive metal parts, with more than 100 plants in 22 countries. At present, Gestamp is advancing some projects in the Industry 4.0 plan, using digital technology and data analysis to achieve more efficient manufacturing plants and more reliable production processes.
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TDX cooperated with Gestamp in the concept certification project in April 2018 to monitor the welding quality of chassis components produced at the Gestamp plant in the United Kingdom. This initiative applies AE sensors, which are commonly used in bridge and large building damage testing, to the production process. Such sensors can detect the characteristics of high-frequency sound waves, and Toshiba's AI analysis technology uses this data to identify welding faults. In the past 17 months, Gestamp has proven that the technology is very effective and can ensure the welding quality of chassis components.
Mitsui & Co., Ltd., an investor in Gestamp and TDX, facilitated the cooperation between the two companies and helped the project.
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TDX, along with Toshiba Corporation and Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation, have verified the proof of concept and will now further improve the welding probing technology. Leveraging Toshiba's extensive manufacturing expertise, the aforementioned companies have developed an IoT solution that applies Toshiba's AI analysis technology to the internal welding quality detection data captured by AE sensors and camera-based surface welding quality detection data.
Currently, three companies are deploying upgraded solutions at a Gestamp plant in Germany. The verification test will continue until March next year. It is expected that the accuracy of welding quality detection will be improved, and it will eventually be successfully deployed to other Gestamp plants, and accelerate the full commercialization of the solution.