Error handling within highly automated automotive industry: Current practice and research needs

Fault tolerant systems, commonly found in literature, are implemented in various computer applications. Some of these methods have been studied and developed to aid manufacturing systems; however, they have rarely been integrated into the manufacturing process. Broadly, the problem seems to be integration of error handling procedures towards the end of physically building the manufacturing line, lack of a defined workflow, untested program logic and inadequately equipped personnel to name a few. To this end, a survey was conducted within the Swedish automotive industry to get an understanding of current error handling procedures and its shortcomings, and are presented here. Based on this data, and looking at the trends within the manufacturing industry, this paper also identifies research topics aimed towards defining methods to create next generation fault tolerant manufacturing systems.