On average, between 5-9 TWBs are utilised for each light vehicle, resulting in a production of 120 million TWBs in Europe and 200-250 million TWBs worldwide per year. This represents an estimated annual consumption of more than 300.000 Tons of raw materials.
In order to optimize the TWB manufacturing process, reduce raw material scrap rate and optimise material usage, the industry requires 100% inspection of autogenously laser welded parts to identify defects.
Nowadays, TWB manufacturers need to use different inspection technologies from different providers in order to ensure weld quality control, leading to cost increase and longer production line shutdowns due to maintenance works and rejection rate increase, as well as increased part rejection rates.
OptiBlanks will reduce materials waste leading to economical direct savings of more than 50.000€ per system per year and will reduce inspection costs by 50%.
TWB manufacturing lines with independent inspection systems installed in series show a scrap rate ranging 2-3%, due to the addition of systems false-positive rates. On average, this signifies 85.000€ of material loss per year per welding line. With an integrated Hybrid system, the interpretation of both technologies will be merged into a single processor and the discrimination algorithms will help to optimize material usage. Furthermore, when results from Hybrid technology are used to set welding parameters, the current manufacturing scrap rate can be reduced down to 0.5% or less.
OptiBlanks will guarantee TWBs high quality, allowing manufacturers to provide products meeting the most stringent standards thus avoiding customer claims or returns when weld quality is not enough to resist stamping process. Most importantly, high quality materials will avoid that defective parts reach our cars, securing car frame structural strength in accidents.
