2025-06-04 [Case Study] SmartRay Achieves Reliable Automotive Weld Inspection with ASRock Industrial’s iEP-7020E Series
SmartRay integrated ASRock Industrial’s iEP-7020E Series Industrial IoT Controller into its JOSY 3D Visual weld inspection system to deliver precise, real-time, and fully automated weld quality control of automotive production. The collaboration enhances manufacturing efficiency by ensuring 100% inline inspection, reducing rework, and supporting data-driven process optimization.
Challenges
In high-precision manufacturing industries such as automotive and electric vehicle (EV) production, weld quality is mission-critical. Components like battery boxes and chassis cradles often require hundreds of welds, each needing to meet stringent safety and performance standards. Traditionally, these inspections have been performed manually, a process that is inherently subjective, labor-intensive, and prone to error. Manual weld inspection suffers from several limitations. Human inspectors are susceptible to fatigue, inconsistency, and personal bias, especially during long production shifts. As a result, some defective welds may be overlooked, while others that meet specifications may be misclassified as faulty. This leads to costly rework, wasted materials, and production delays. Worse, if defects go undetected, they can result in product recalls, warranty claims, and severe damage to a manufacturer’s reputation.
Moreover, manual methods typically lack the capability to collect and analyze data, making it difficult to identify recurring issues or optimize processes. In a modern, data-driven production environment, this creates a significant gap in traceability and root cause analysis, putting manufacturers at a disadvantage when aiming for operational efficiency, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance. SmartRay, a leading provider of high-precision 3D sensor technology, recognized that to maintain a competitive edge and meet rising industry standards, a more accurate, repeatable, and intelligent inspection solution was essential.
Solution
To address these critical challenges, SmartRay implemented its advanced JOSY 3D visual weld inspection solution, an automated, non-contact inspection system designed to deliver consistent, objective, and 100% weld inspection across high-speed production environments. At the heart of this solution is the integration of ASRock Industrial’s iEP-7020E Series Industrial IoT Controller, powered by 13th Gen Intel® Core™ processors and an integrated GPU, providing powerful computing, AI capabilities, reliable connectivity, and the industrial-grade durability required for nonstop factory operation. The iEP-7020E supports real-time data processing and AI inference from SmartRay’s proprietary 3D triangulation sensors, enabling high-resolution scanning of weld seams with unmatched speed and accuracy. The JOSY system combines high-speed sensor data with advanced image processing algorithms to generate detailed 3D profiles for each weld. These profiles are automatically evaluated against international and customer-specific standards to ensure 100% of welds are assessed objectively, reducing variability and ensuring reliable quality control.
The iEP-7020E also enables seamless integration with factory networks through support for industrial protocols, feeding inspection data into Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) for centralized monitoring and traceability. Through JOSY’s web-based visualization dashboard, engineers and operators gain access to comprehensive statistical tools, including Pareto charts defect heat map, and guided rework workflows, allowing continuous process improvement and fast response to anomalies. This powerful synergy between SmartRay’s inspection technology and ASRock Industrial’s edge computing platform ensures that manufacturers can achieve faster cycle times, reduce downtime, and significantly improve overall production efficiency.
Benefits
- Objective and Accurate Inspection
Achieves 100% inline weld inspection with >99% match rate to human experts, ensuring consistent quality and reducing reliance on manual labor
- Cost and Waste Reduction
Significantly lowers rework and material waste by accurately identifying defects in real time, enabling immediate corrective action and smoother production flow, ultimately increasing yield and maximizing operational efficiency
- Improved Process Control and ROI
Enables long-term process optimization through detailed statistical dashboards and Pareto analysis, providing traceability, recall protection, and a rapid return on investment
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