Based on Process Innovation,Promoting Intelligent Manufacturing
——Shanghai Shipbuilding T echnology Research Institute Sturdily Promotes High-Quality Development

Huang Hui

CSSC Shanghai Shipbuilding Technology Research Institute (SSTRI)is the only comprehensive applied research institute in China's shipbuilding industry, aimed at the modernization of shipbuilding technology and carrying out the construction technology research of military ships, civil ships and marine engineering. For a long time, SSTRI has accumulated rich experience in the advanced manufacturing mode of ship and marine engineering, shipbuilding technology, digital manufacturing and other technical fields, forming its own unique R&D advantages.

Under the new situation,“digitalization, networking and intelligence of the manufacturing industry” has become an important trend of technological changes in the future. For the traditional manufacturing industry, the development of intelligent manufacturing is the key to promote the cost reduction and benefit increasing,improve the supply structure and achieve high quality development. Intelligent marine equipment, represented by intelligent ships, has become the focus of the global maritime development thanks to its wide connectivity and drive to the whole industrial chain.

In view of the “three-step”development strategy of “intelligent workshop-intelligent shipyard-intelligent alliance” in the shipbuilding industry,focusing on the main line of “innovative application of digital, networked and intelligent technology in the shipbuilding industry”, SSTRI has followed the changing requirements of manufacturing model, made efforts to construct two platforms: technology R&D and industrial incubation. In the technical focus point,SSTRI has constructed the test verification platform, carried out the ship intelligent manufacturing process database, the equipment and the control system R&D and test verification, grasped the intelligent manufacturing core technology.In the industrial focus point, in line with major engineering construction, technical transformation upgrading, SSTRI has striven to provide shipbuilding enterprises with intelligent manufacturing total solution. At present, SSTRI is sparing no effort to promote intelligent manufacturing in three dimensions: “carrying out the research of key common technologies of intelligent manufacturing”, “building intelligent manufacturing test verification platform” and “realizing the industrialization of scientific research achievements”.

SSTRI, in collaboration with CSSC Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group)Co., Ltd., Shanghai Jiaotong University,CSSC Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Corp (DSIC), Tsinghua University and other well-known Chinese shipbuilders and colleges and universities, undertook the research work of “Key Common Technologies for Ship Intelligent Manufacturing”, which is a special project for high-tech ships. The project focuses on the key production links such as hull assemblage manufacturing, pipe processing and block painting, carries out researches into five topics: the integrated application of intelligent manufacturing technology, ship design technology for intelligent manufacturing, the development of interconnection platform, the manufacturing execution management and control technology of intelligent workshop for hull assemblage, ship segmented intelligent manufacturing equipment solution and key common technology.

In order to better verify the results and application of the special research on “Key Common Technologies for Ship Intelligent Manufacturing”, SSTRI has vigorously carried out the construction of intelligent manufacturing test verification platform. In view of the key bottleneck of promoting intelligent manufacturing in shipbuilding industry, SSTRI selected“three lines and one system”, that is,profile cutting intelligent production line,small assemblage intelligent production line, medium assemblage intelligent welding workstation and hull segment workshop intelligent control system,carried out key technology R&D, and focused on the construction of intelligent manufacturing test verification platform for hull segment workshop in the base of its investment company, CSSC Lingang Shipbuilding Equipment Co., Ltd.,gradually build a process think tank and constantly improved intelligent manufacturing process R&D capability and system integration capability. Among them, on the basis of the research results of design and integrated control of the established profile cutting intelligent production line, the intelligent production line of profile cutting has broken through the key technological links such as automatic feeding, intelligent cutting,automatic material handling and so on.At present, the hardware installation,control system development and software and hardware integration debugging have been completed. Through pilot test, the accumulation of process data is realized, and the design integration capability of profile cutting intelligent production line and the capability of providing system integration solution are gradually mastered, laying a foundation for the industrialization development and application and popularization of profile cutting intelligent production line. On this basis, At present, the production line is actively carrying out robot cutting process test, in order to further improve the profile cutting process database.

The small assemblage intelligent production line is based on the research of the design and integration control of the line, broke through the processes of the robot off-line programming and cooperative control, the multisystem integration control and the like,established the intelligent welding process database, and successful；y developed a small assemblage intelligent welding system, and achieved self-sensing, selfdecision-making and self-execution of the small assemblage operation. The production line has completed the test environment construction, and is using the test environment to carry out the process test for different parameters and different specifications and materials,so as to further improve the process database. At the same time, the technical achievements of the small assemblage intelligent production line are being gradually realized in Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, Guangzhou Shipbuilding International Co., Ltd., CSSC Huangpu Shipbuilding and other CSSC backbone enterprises.

The medium assemblage intelligent welding workstation is committed to breaking through the key technical bottlenecks such as graphic information software processing, double robot decision division and so on, establishing the special model base and welding process database and forming the intelligent workshop level medium assemblage welding system. At present,some achievements have been applied in Guangzhou Shipbuilding International,Huangpu Wenchong and other shipbuilding enterprises.

Based on the research of hull section workshop planning, logistics,warehousing, quality, accuracy and other key technologies, the intelligent management and control system of hull section workshop has been developed,which has formed the integrated capability of hull section workshop.At present, the system has completed the development of some functional modules, the next step will be to carry out integrated debugging in line with intelligent manufacturing production line.

At present, the intelligent manufacturing test verification platform has broken through the key technical bottleneck of the “three lines and one system”, formed the relevant technical standards, obtained patents and software works and other intellectual property rights, basically realized testing and verification of the intelligent manufacturing key technology and the software and hardware system on the platform, and initially formed the testing capability of the intelligent manufacturing technology application research.

On the basis of the transformation of the technical results, SSTRI has adopted the combination of introduction,absorption and digestion and independent R&D, promoted the intelligent manufacturing industrialization process in an orderly manner, is gradually cultivating the supply capacity of the intelligent manufacturing software and hardware system and forming intelligent manufacturing products with independent intellectual property rights including plane section assembly line, medium/small assemblage assembly line, sheet/profile cutting line and others.