Quality becomes an economic factor
Flexibility alone, however, is not enough. As production volumes increase, so does the challenge of keeping every individual process under control. A battery pack can contain a very large number of welded joints, and a single faulty joint may render an entire component unusable. For this reason, Bosch sees the real challenge not in laser welding itself, but in transferring complex processes to scalable production while keeping defects to a minimum. Christian Elsner of Mercedes-Benz and Steffen Rübling of TRUMPF showed how closely process stability, sensor technology and quality assurance are now intertwined in series production.
Quality becomes a direct economic factor. Rework, scrap and elaborate inspections cost time and money. The earlier a defect is detected – or prevented altogether – the more efficiently production can operate. At LSE’26, IPG Photonics summarized the requirements for scalable battery manufacturing in three points: productivity, process stability and verifiable quality.
A joint presentation by BMW and weldmetrix showed how these requirements can be met in series production. As manufacturers scale pilot lines to high-volume production, the number of joints rises dramatically. Since purely manual or visual inspection cannot keep pace, sensors capture process data during welding itself. The two companies aim to assess every individual joint, detect defects at an early stage and store production data so that it remains traceable over the long term.
New Infrared Technologies also presented methods at LSE’26 for monitoring laser processes in real time. The goal is a production environment in which faulty welds are detected during the process itself. Quality assurance is thus increasingly moving from a downstream inspection step into the manufacturing process itself.
Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT
