A monitoring system for ultrasonic welding, developed by University of Michigan and General Motors researchers for production of the Chevy Volt electric vehicle (EV), identified nearly all bad welds, avoiding an estimated $22 million in potential repairs.
Designed and implemented roughly 15 years ago, the technology was recently recognized with the S.M. Wu Research Implementation Award from SME, formerly known as the Society and Manufacturing Engineers. It’s an award for “outstanding original research presented as a paper at the annual North American Manufacturing Research and, subsequently, upon implementation, had a significant commercial and/or societal impact.”
The inline monitoring system—integrated directly into the production line—had a success rate of 99.99995%, missing two defective welds out of more than 4 million total welds. The technology helped improve the quality of EVs, lower their cost and improve production efficiency.
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