Japan’s Shipbuilding To Be Automated

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 10

Japan’s Shipbuilding To Be Automated

(N.Z.P. A.’Reuter) TOKYO. The Japanese Ministry of Transport is launching a three-year study of a basic plan to spread automation throughout the shipbuilding industry and conserve manpower. Automation, with the use of computers, is already employed in a number of processes at modern shipyards around the world. Computers are being used for planning and controlling the flow of work from stage to stage, and also for process control on such equipment as flame-cutters shaping steel plate. Some shipyards use computers in their design departments, but the Japanese want to spread automation through all processes of building a ship, from design to completion. An official of the Ministry of Transport says the final objective of the plan is to cut by half the number of workers at shipyards, and to reduce the manpower needs of any new yards to one-fifth of the present level. During the 1969 financial year, the initial year of the survey, a committee will be organised by representatives of the shipbuilding and related industries, trade organisations and Government offices. This committee will consider the problems raised by a fact-finding survey of the work processes in building a ship, and propose solutions to such problems. In 1970, the committee will devote itself to rough designs for automation and mechanisation of. individual work processes. Finally, the committee will

work out an over-all basic design for a system to automate the shipbuilding industry in all its aspects. It will also take into account improvement of the working environment for the number of employees, and a drastic reduction in the number of separate work processes.

The Ministry says that the adoption of automation methods in Japanese shipyards has become necessary because of the growing shortage of labour and a sharp rise in wages. Some European shipyards are already adopting automation methods, with a marked saving of manpower.