Swept friction stir spot welding, a derivative of friction stir welding is a solid-state process for joining materials by using frictional heat generated due to rotating tool along the weld line. The main objective of this study is to investigate the strength of the swept friction stir spot welded aluminum plate by changing the welding process parameters. In this paper, the joining was done on thin aluminum alloy plates using the Octaspot� tool path with a radius of 10 mm. The samples were welded using a CNC milling machine. The study focuses on two process parameters which are the tool rotational speed and the welding traverse speed. The samples were analyzed on their shear strength and the results show that the higher the tool speed, the higher the shear strength is. However, when the rotational speed is increased, the shear strength shows a decreased pattern. The overall results are in good agreement with other published results. © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016.