Quality Requirements and Conformity of Welded Products in the Manufacturing Chain in Welding Network

The objective of this study is to examine the manufacturing and conformity of welded products and the significance of co-operation of different functions to welding quality. This study focuses on costs arising from nonconformity from the manufacturing perspective. It briefly discusses unnecessary costs, claim costs and warranty costs in the production chain. It furthermore takes an overview of challenges in welding manufacturing in the engineering field with empirical research in the industry and shows that failures and defects are identifiable and known in companies but very rarely the root cause of imperfections is investigated. The requirements from manufacturing go unrecognized at the many levels of organisation. One of the main obstacles to improving welding functions is the lack of co-operation and knowledge of the demands on welding. This can cause continuous nonconformity in products and in welding manufacturing. The observations have been collected from welding networks in engineering workshops where GMAW welding is a commonly used process. The results provide a framework for future research to define the importance of actions of different functions to the quality and costs of manufacturing.