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The demand for the use of tailor welded blanks in the automotive industry continues to grow. The competition in this business is also growing. In order to be competitive, a cost effective and reliable welding system is critical. This paper introduces several system concepts for laser tailored blank welding including a production line with a reliable edge preparation unit in line. All systems can be used both for laser welding steel and aluminum parts. A comparison between high speed milling and laser cutting for edge preparation is also made. The results show that laser cutting is more suitable at the current stage for in-line edge preparation. The cycle time for a typical body side (3000 mm weld seam length) and door inner (2600 mm long weld seam) using this production line is 32 seconds and 14 seconds, respectively.