Application of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) in Automated Spot Welding Process of an Automobile Industry: A Case Study

Automation in the manufacturing sector has become a subject of great interest nowadays and Spot welding through robotics has become a trend in the business market. Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) process helps to reduce the errors and thereby improve the quality of the product being produced. The application of FMEA in this arena is a challenging task. Through this study, an attempt has been made to identify and provide solutions to the challenges faced by a small scale local automobile company. The manual operations of spot welding in the organization were replaced by a robotic process. Although the speed of production increased, certain errors in the robotic spot welding process gave rise to quality issues. Errors occurring during the execution of the robotic spot welding process were identified and analysed by Cause and Effect diagram and FMEA method. During the study, ten CO2 and three spot welding failures were observed. Efforts were made to minimize the failures by assigning risk priority numbers to each failure and mistake proofing the failures. Results indicate that proper maintenance of fixture, safety sensor and robot teaching can avoid these errors and provide a quality product. This activity has paved a path for the smooth implementation of FMEA in spot welding process by improving its effectiveness and customer centric products. To enhance quality and increase the speed of the manufacturing process, this cost effective technique can be extended to similar organizations with suitable modifications.