Welcome to SmartDress

High volume automotive production (such as body-in-white construction) operations rely heavily on RSW (resistance spot welding), and suffer significant losses of output (and resulting revenue) as a consequence of frequent production line stoppages. These stoppages are predominantly caused by weld quality issues, which in turn arise from poor maintenance of consumable 'tips' on RSW guns.

SmartDress is a fully automated adaptive control system that will optimise, monitor and maintain electrode tip quality in these applications. This will improve weld quality and reliability and minimise line stoppages.

Another key feature of the SmartDress system will be that it will allow cost-competitive spot welding of aluminium, which is not currently commercially viable. As a result production of lower cost light weight vehicles would become possible leading to a significant reduction of CO2 emissions.

The know-how necessary for the development of this innovative project will be achieved by the consortium consisting of the following companies of the EEC: