According to the “Advanced Manufacturing Shipbuilding Application” report published by KETmaritime, a rapid growth was seen in shipbuilding’s patent application. The study analyzes the recent use and future potential of ‘new-age’ technology, involving 3D-scanning, 3D-printing, robotics, virtual and augmented reality.
Specifically, the study was established under the KETmaritime project, a project funded with €1million by the Interreg Atlantic Area Program, via the European Regional Development Fund.
The leader of the project is the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) along with a consortium of seven partners. Trough this collaboration, both sides make their efforts to identify ‘Key Enabling Technologies’, boosting the Atlantic’s maritime industry needs and demands.
Partners involved in this particular study spent considerable time reviewing global shipbuilding patents published in the last decade. The production of patents in the field of shipbuilding has consistently doubled throughout the last decade, even tripling in 2018.
…said the Project coordinator, Ana Vila.
All of the study’s data were examined among 2010 and 2019, including more than 3,800 patents. With China and Korea being on the top of the most energetic patenting countries, both countries accumulate more than 80% of the industrial protection activity in the field of manufacturing related to shipbuilding. While the USA, Japan and Europe follow behind, as they keep using traditional technology.
As the project coordinator Ana Vila noted: “Since 2010, China and Korea have dominated industrial protection activity in the field of shipbuilding. The most prominent applicants were Korean shipbuilders: Daewoo, Samsung, and Hyundai. These three organizations gathered more than 15% of the total patent production alone.”
The Ketmaritime (Key Enabling Technologies to the Maritime Industries) project, includes a consortium of the French multidisciplinary research laboratory CIMAP (CEA group), Portuguese maritime economy cluster Fórum Oceano and Spanish industrial design centre IDONIAL.
Key findings from this specific KETmaritime case study on ‘Advanced Manufacturing for Shipbuilding Applications’ highlight why successful implementation of new and advanced technology is of paramount importance to the competitiveness of the Atlantic shipbuilding trade.
…Ms Vila concluded.
Overall, the industrial protection energies of the shipbuilding is a sign that technologies can bring significant results to the shipbuilding industry, showing how the most active agents (China and Korea) used technologies as an advantage and eventually managed to succeed.