A
sometimes overlooked aspect of the dramatic
growth in world trade and offshoring has
been the huge demand for cargo ships, which
have left the world’s ship builders
struggling to keep pace with demand. In
response, the largest ship builders, almost
all of them in Asia, have made major changes
to production processes, including new inland
construction facilities, that are helping
to add capacity and reduce cycle times.
Large cargo
vessels are typically built in “dry
docks” – basically empty
bowls next to the sea, which can be filled
with water when a ship is complete to allow
it to get to the ocean. But for many
ship builders, capacity at their existing
dry dock facilities is booked for several
years. In addition, limitations in the cranes
that can be used and other constraints have
meant a lot more of the final assembly work
was done in the dry docks themselves than
might be ideal.
One
potential answer was to build ships further
inland – if they could figure out
a way to get the huge vessels out to sea.
Now, a number of companies, such as the
world’s largest ship builder, South
Korea’s
Hyundai Heavy Industries, have developed
approaches to solve that problem.
A Wall Street
Journal report said that Hyundai engineers
solved this logistics challenge by developing
a process where the finished boats pushed
by air and then lifted on to river barges
and taken to sea. In another case, another
Korean company, STX Shipbuilding, developed
a land-based pulley track that moved the
boats from an inland assembly facility to
a river barge.
Building
inland also removes some of the dry dock
assembly constraints. Just like airplane
manufacturers, the ship builders were already
moving to an outsourced model, in which
major components are built by sub-contractors,
and the ship builder performs final assembly.
The inland facilities allow larger sections
to be built outside the construction facility,
reducing the final assembly effort in some
cases from 10 weeks to 4 weeks as less welding
and other tasks are required.
The Wall
Street Journal notes that customers of the
cargo ships were concerned that vessels
would be damaged by bending too much during
the transfer process from the inland facilities
to the sea. The original estimates that
the bend would be well within existing tolerances
and not damage the ships have proven accurate.
Regardless,
ship demand for now continues to soar, with
most ship builders sold out of current capacity
for 3-4 years. As a result, the prices ocean
carriers pay for ships have risen by about
50% since 2003. |