French Shipyard Advances Welding Automation

STX France SA (Saint-Nazaire, France) is one of the top cruise ship and navy ship builders in the world, dedicated to maritime building and services. It is 66.6 percent owned by STX Europe and 33.4 percent owned by the French state via a Strategic Investment Fund.

The shipyard is located at the mouth of the River Loire and benefits from a privileged location on the Atlantic coast. With over 150 years in the field of shipbuilding, the company relies on its technological and human assets to develop a diversification strategy towards related activities As an expert of large industrial project management, STX France employs 2,400 people that are specialized in design, fabrication and erection, as well as in the commissioning of ships and marine equipment.

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The company had a strong book of orders but needed higher capacity and better quality. To accomplish these metrics, they targeted less rework after welding, since panels require a lot of fairing afterwards to get rid of deformations, consuming time and resources. In the highly competitive market of shipbuilding, they needed to modernize their panel welding machinery with more efficient and productive equipment in the shipyard that would give them more capacity, better quality and faster performance assisted by new technology.

The ship builder decided to turn to Pemamek Oy Ltd (Loimaa, Finland) after a competitive offering round and purchased the PEMA Integrated One-sided Laser-Hybrid Welding and Milling Station with an extensive customized conveyor system for welding deck plates together. To secure fast and reliable delivery of the welding line, STX France also included installation, training and commissioning of the complete system in their order.

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This PEMA Laser-Hybrid Welding System with integrated heavy duty milling ensures minimized distortion of the deck panels. Because it is capable of feeding two of existing panel lines, a special conveyor solution had to be adapted. The conveyors surrounding the station are tailor-made for this specific application involving the existing systems.

“For us, this application clearly puts PEMA in a special position because this heavy duty laser-hybrid welding system and the milling station were unique proof of their technology and enhanced their great reputation in the shipbuilding business,” emphasizes Florent Camaret, the project manager of STX France. “We have a need for welding thicknesses up to 25 mm with one pass. We needed solid quality, and PEMA provided us with this technology.”

The PEMA Welding Solution has minimized distortion on butt-welded panels, meaning the shipyard now has less rework like fairing, with less man-hours and improved productivity and quality. No duplicate work is needed and the quality of deck panels has improved, which makes block manufacturing easier due to less deformation on panels.

Pemamek Oy Ltd, Lamminkatu 47, PO Box 50, 32201 Loimaa, Finland, 358 2 760 771, info@pemamek.com, www.pemamek.com.