Lessons from adopting robotic in-line quality inspection in the Swedish manufacturing industry

Abstract

The Zero-Defect Manufacturing (ZDM) movement has received increasing interest from practitioners and academics. However, despite the academic development of the field, the adoption of ZDM enablers such as robotic in-line quality inspection applications has not increased as expected. This article explores the state of adoption of robotic in-line quality inspection at five global Swedish manufacturing companies. Results show that contrary to the case companies’ beliefs, more people- and process-oriented challenges have been encountered compared with technological ones. Future work will focus on developing system design guidelines for robotic in-line quality inspection systems in the realm of ZDM.