AM, cobots, and NDT

In past issues I’ve mentioned the United States’ ongoing struggle in filling shipbuilding orders for the Navy and the government’s renewed focus on the maritime defense industrial base, so the June issue of PROCEEDINGS caught my eye.

While most of the focus has been placed on finding workforce and materials for the shipbuilding industry, Rear Admiral Todd S. Weeks and Matthew Sermon believe technology is what’s holding the U.S. back in filling orders. The American shipyards are severely outdated when compared with allies such as South Korea and Japan along with China’s expanding shipbuilding industry. Weeks and Sermon say the People’s Liberation Army Navy in China overtook the U.S. as the largest navy in the world in 2019 and has since cruised comfortably ahead as China’s shipbuilding capacity is reportedly 230x larger than that of the U.S.

Since 2018, America has invested more than $2.3 billion into the submarine and maritime industrial bases; however, only $174 million of that was directly for technological innovation, the authors wrote.

Like many industries during the COVID-19 pandemic, shipbuilding faced delays and bottlenecks as the maritime industrial base relied heavily on just-in-time manufacturing, so the authors suggest advanced technologies such as additive manufacturing (AM), collaborative robots (cobots), and non-destructive testing (NDT) could be good places to start with that investment.

AM specifically could have a huge role in the marine industrial base considering 40% of the U.S.’ casting and forging foundries have closed in the past 25 years. Weeks credits the Navy with validating the interchangeability of AM parts with those made by traditional methods as the Navy has been able to speed up production timelines from years/months to weeks/days.

Newport News Shipbuilding has increased its use of cobots in production lines and Navy cobot pilot programs increased efficiency and first-time production quality by more than 45% according to Weeks and Sermon.

NDT could get a revamp by digitizing the analogue radiographic inspection process and using crawler robots for inspections. A recent pilot program using commercially available NDT technology at Norfolk Naval Shipyard reduced part-inspection times by 20%, Weeks and Sermon wrote.

The final frontier discussed in the article focused on improving the efficiency of shipyard workers if/once the technological upgrades are made. Shipyards still heavily rely on paper processes along with the outdated equipment discussed earlier so Weeks and Sermon know the Navy will have to reassess how data is stored and used.

“The Navy is exploring how to modernize paper-driven processes and increase sensory inputs to provide real-time insights, streamline production, and enhance decision-making by revamping the management of everything from material consumption and machine downtime to parts inventories,” Weeks and Sermon say.

While workers are still a huge concern in ramping up shipbuilding efforts, if more is done to upgrade the technology at the shipyards, it could ease the pain and help boost production to meet the increased demand.