ROK shipbuilders turn high tech
Shipyards are investing heavily in digital technologies as they, now in their heyday of a decade-long shipbuilding boom, set their sights on the future.
Hyundai Heavy Industries Co, the world's No. 1 shipbuilder, is currently pushing 'digital shipbuilding', for which the company hopes to take advantage of the country's prowess in digital technologies into the area of ship manufacturing and enhance productivity and efficiency from ship design to maintenance.
According to sources at Hyundai Heavy, the company started a project last month to develop a 'digitalised product lifecycle management system'. The system is designed to allow Hyundai to manage the entire shipbuilding process with greater efficiency.
It hopes to complete development of the system by July 2010.
Samsung Heavy Industries, which ranks No 2 globally after Hyundai, has the 'digital dream bay' project.
However, the fast emergence of China as a major shipbuilding nation backed by cheap labour has put pressure on Korean companies to turn to high technologies.
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