Real-time Analytics
Audi needed to scale AI-enabled production and logistics across factories while reducing reliance on stationary factory computers, improving flexibility and quality control, and giving employees real-time support in large-scale series production.
Reported impact
Audi reports more stable processes, lower maintenance costs, higher IT security, faster rollout of new functions, reduced manual strain through robotic assistance, earlier fault detection, and shorter lead times for production changes.
Audi is scaling an in-house AI production architecture built around Edge Cloud 4 Production (EC4P), a cloud-based control platform that centralizes factory automation workloads previously handled by local shop-floor PCs and controllers. In vehicle assembly, EC4P delivers worker-guidance data such as vehicle specifications and regional variants in real time from a central source. In the Neckarsulm body shop, virtual programmable logic controllers (vPLC) running through EC4P coordinate about 100 robots with millisecond precision for large-scale series production. On top of this compute layer, Audi runs AI applications including Weld Splatter Detection (WSD), which identifies weld splatter on car bodies and triggers downstream robotic grinding, and ProcessGuardAIn, which uses the P-Data Engine data platform to combine standardized plant, system, machine, and sensor data for real-time anomaly detection and process monitoring. Additional AI control loops are being connected to paint-shop dryer controllers to optimize energy use.
Production-system, plant, machine, and sensor data are centralized through EC4P and the P-Data Engine. EC4P serves real-time worker-guidance information and runs vPLC-controlled automation, while AI applications consume standardized operational data: WSD inspects car-body underbodies and signals robotic rework, and ProcessGuardAIn analyzes live manufacturing data to detect anomalies and notify experts. In the paint shop, dryer controllers are being connected to an AI system to adjust temperature and air volume more responsively.
"Audi is putting the Edge Cloud 4 Production (EC4P) into operation across its production environment."
"Based on machine and sensor data, ProcessGuardAIn already monitors production steps in real time, detects anomalies at an early stage, and informs the experts."
"Industrial devices, including around 100 robots, work together via the EC4P with millisecond precision."
"The automaker controls production systems via a large cloud instead of stationary factory computers at scale"
"The benefits for Audi are considerable: less logistical effort and significantly shorter lead times for changes – minutes instead of weeks."
"The move to the cloud has already eliminated the need for more than 1,000 industrial PCs."
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Traceability
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