The perfect art of the Porsche paint shop

Robots, artificial intelligence – and a human touch. How the Porsche plant in Leipzig ensures only the finest finishes leave the paint shop.
For decades, robots have been used to apply paint to new cars during manufacture, improving safety for employees while yielding the benefits of increased efficiency and more consistent paint application. But even with the precision and reproducibility of robot-applied finishes, vehicles still need to be visually checked in order to identify any potential paint defects.
Until relatively recently, these labour-intensive and time-consuming inspections would have to be carried out manually – and, even with the keenest of eyes, always with the natural risk of human error. With modern technology, however, this process in the paint shop at the Porsche plant in Leipzig has been significantly streamlined. Team members in the inspection area are assisted by an automatic defect detection system featuring two robots, although these examples are configured a little differently to their cousins on the painting line. Equipped with powerful sensors, these robot arms scan the entire outer surface of the body shell of every series-production car produced at Leipzig.