JAPAN'S IHI TO EXPORT SHIPBUILDING TECH TO EMERGING MARKETS

IHI Corp. (TSE:7013) has developed a system that automates the key process of bending steel sheets for ships and plans to market it to emerging economies.

Developed by shipbuilding subsidiary IHI Marine United Inc., the system handles the entire process, from transporting steel sheets to processing, just by entering data.

To date, IHI has relied on skilled workers to bend steel sheets into the desired shape by repeatedly applying a burner for heating and water for cooling. But acquiring such know-how can take at least 10 years.

With robot technology, steel sheets can be made into complicated configurations, such as an "S" shape. The system fully automates the process, including slight touch-ups after steel sheets have been bent.

The basic system costs around 300 million yen (US$3.6 million), plus an annual usage fee of 10-20 million yen. But it will help the average shipyard cut costs by as much as 30 million yen a year, according to IHI.

The technology will be gradually introduced at group shipyards and parts factories, with external sales to kick off as early as fiscal 2011. In Brazil, India and elsewhere, a host of companies aim to break into shipbuilding but face the obstacle of training highly skilled employees. And after laying off workers during the recent downturn, domestic shipbuilders are dealing with a serious shortage of craftspeople, providing an opening for IHI's automated system.

Japanese shipbuilders are losing orders to Chinese and South Korean rivals, but taking production offshore requires hefty investments. The downturn in orders is likely to scuttle sales at IHI's shipbuilding business to around 150 billion yen in fiscal 2012, down from the expected 180 billion yen for this fiscal year.
Source: Press Release