Resistance welding has three major defects that affect the quality, and profitabilitiy of the automotive supply chain (ASC) industry that manufactures and assembly body parts and engine fittings. The sustainability of the industry is determined by the quantity of defects for each component in mass production. The supply chain industry produces similar but un identical parts for five different automotive industries each one requiring a certain quantity per week to meet its production line demands. The common and frequent defects identified  in resistance welding are porosity, burnthrough and miswelds.  The occurance of these deffects affect the delivery time of finished products because of rejects and rework that are encountered in total quality management of the production process.The study established the root causes and solutions to the three common defects and developed a root cause analysis diagram for resistance welding in the ASC.  Other deffects like spatter, cracks, slag inclusion, overlap and undercut are less pronounced in resistant welding.

Keywords

Reistant spot welding, porosity, miswelds, burnthrough, sustainability