China's shipyards deploy welding robots, but face pushback from workers
Yard engineers and suppliers say set-up times have fallen, but some robots are still not as fast as skilled human welders.
Chinese shipyards are deploying welding robots which work far faster than models from just a few years ago, but not everyone is on board with the new technology, according to insiders speaking at an industry roundtable. For certain use cases, robots still weld less in a day than a human welder does by hand.
Industrial robots are making inroads at China's busy shipyards. A recent pitch from SpeedBot Robotics (视比特), a Hunan robot maker, showed a welding station and a humanoid welding robot at a Shenzhen marine expo on Oct. 22, OFweek reported. SpeedBot says it serves China's big shipbuilding groups, though OFweek's report named no yard or robot count.
At Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (沪东中华), a state-owned Shanghai yard developing collaborative welding robots with makers since 2022, the time to model one weld cell, a box-like compartment inside a hull block, has fallen from 40 minutes to 10, welding lab head Liu Lei (刘磊) told the August roundtable, run by Chinese robot-industry publisher 高工机器人 (GGII).
Suppliers are faster, too. Wang Zongyi (王宗义), chairman of XiRobot (行健机器人), a welding-line supplier based in Wuhu, Anhui province, said one Hudong-Zhonghua project took 24 robots on four lines from a March contract to May delivery, then to output in three weeks. Seven or eight years ago, he said, such projects could take 8 to 10 months.
The robots are getting pushback from workers, though. In some mid-assembly work, a welder welds about 50-60 meters (about 165-195 feet) per day by hand, while some collaborative robot set-ups may manage only 25-30 meters (about 80-100 feet), said Zhou Dasheng (周大胜), founder of a robot maker. For welders paid by output, GGII wrote, that means doing less and earning less. If equipment isn't easy to use, workers won't use it willingly, even when the yard pushes it with orders or rewards, said Suo Zhe (索哲), head of digital operations at Wuhu Shipyard (芜湖造船厂).
Beyond the shipyards, Offshore Oil Engineering Co. (海洋石油工程股份有限公司), which builds offshore oil and gas platforms, said in June that a Chinese-developed welding robot system had gone into use at its Tianjin base, Xinhua reported. A joint that took four experienced welders at least two days now takes one person one day, Wang Chao (王超), a deputy manager in the base's structural pipe-fabrication unit, told Xinhua.
Sources: OFweek机器人网 OFweek Robotics, 高工机器人 GGII, 新华网 Xinhua [1], [2], 行健机器人 XiRobot
Editor: Ian Lamont
