When thyssenkrupp and Wilhelmsen stood collectively on the 2023 NAMIC World Additive Manufacturing Summit to announce their collaboration, it marked a potential flip of the tide for the best way the maritime and power sectors procure components.
The three way partnership, Pelagus 3D, holds an bold plan to serve greater than 4,000 vessels and oil and fuel platforms worldwide. To do this, the German metal firm and Norwegian maritime agency are leveraging additive manufacturing applied sciences and a worldwide community of OEMs to construct a digital platform that delivers spare components on-demand.
Pelagus, basically, intends to change into the Amazon of the ocean.
The maritime and offshore sectors face a lot of the identical logistical issues encountered by different industrial sectors hampered by the lengthy, unbending lead occasions of conventional manufacturing provide chains however exacerbated by huge geographical challenges that imply spare components can typically take as much as two years to achieve their meant vessels. This Singapore-based collaboration, cast after years spent testing the waters of AM’s feasibility and applicability, goals to drastically reform that mannequin and ship components to vessels in a matter of weeks and even days.
“The easy equation right here is that if the spare half shouldn’t be obtainable it results in downtime for the system and which means for both a maritime vessel or offshore platform, cash is wasted,” Kenlip Ong, Chief Govt Officer at Pelagus 3D, advised TCT.
Industries continues to inventory warehouses ‘simply in case’ with none assure that the components stocked will ever be put to make use of. As shared by Professor Jennifer Johns on the College of Bristol Enterprise Faculty, within the UK alone, the variety of enterprise premises categorised as transport and storage elevated by 88% in 2021 in comparison with 2011, and in line with Ong, for the offshore sector, research have proven that round 80% of components stocked in warehouses are by no means utilised.
“The unhappy fact is that you just can not inventory all the things,” Ong continued. “You might be committing to upfront funding prices the place you take cash that you could be not have and taking loans out as a enterprise to place within the stocking of a warehouse. You may not even use it however you want it since you by no means know when your pump system in your offshore platform goes to go down. It is capital locked away, so this represents a really massive alternative for companies to profit from 3D printing.”
Pelagus 3D believes that chance might convey components to customers quicker, scale back the necessity for big bodily inventories, and ship higher, extra optimised merchandise. In a mission with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, for instance, a return oil standpipe was efficiently redesigned, full with inside channels and Kawasaki brand, to cut back weight by 90% and delivered to a vessel in Japan in simply 15 days. Conventionally, that very same half would have taken 135 days to ship at an annual storage price of 340 USD.
“There is a sustainability angle right here too,” Ong defined. “Enchancment of the design is such that the valve angles and the move of the channels are improved so we do not have leakages. This can be a good instance of how we’re in a position so as to add worth to our prospects.”
Wilhelmsen started 3D printing initiatives in 2019, engaged on easy polymer components reminiscent of gears. By a collaboration with thyssenkrupp in 2020, its enterprise mannequin shifted however learnings from previous tasks and collaborations galvanised Pelagus 3D in its perception that additive presents enormous potential for the business.
“We strategy it from a giant image perspective,” Ong stated. “It’s very completely different from 5 years in the past when folks have been simply attempting to get one or two components constructed as status tasks. Now we’re taking a look at this from ‘I actually need to commercialise this,’ and the one means to do that is to have a giant image perspective and persuade senior administration that it is a viable know-how that we must always put money into.”
Pelagus says it’s offering prospects with entry to the whole lot of the AM know-how spectrum. It’s working with over 80 suppliers throughout the globe and makes course of suggestions based mostly on half evaluation that decide the most effective technique of manufacture, which is able to then be facilitated by way of a producing associate as near the purpose of want as potential. That is all accomplished alongside OEMs and maritime certification our bodies, just like the DNV and ABS, to ship components with a full guarantee and certification, and crucially, construct belief with the top person.
“We’re working along with the unique gear producers to supply worth to them and uncover alternatives for them to pick additive manufacturing because the know-how of alternative for particular spare components that their prospects require,” Ong stated. “We mainly have a option to seamlessly combine it into the procurement processes of our prospects and I believe that has very massive implications when it comes to uptake and use as a result of when you’re simply doing status tasks, so long as you’ll be able to ship these three components, [for example], it is fantastic. However for us, that is meant to be a means for them to order components in actual time, regularly.”
The corporate is investing in constructing out its Pelagus software program platform and fascinating with ship house owners, OEMs and maritime engineers to evaluate their information, establish excessive potential components and make sure the platform is talking the identical language inside this new digital infrastructure. Based on the crew, relating to the maritime business, no suggestions is sweet suggestions however the listing of corporations which are already participating with Pelagus – Hafnia, Kongsberg Maritime, Doosan, Jets, Kawasaki Heavy Industries – and the 4,000 property which have already been onboarded, are a very good indicator of the waves it’s already making. Earlier this yr, Pelagus additionally hit a milestone by securing ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, and ISO 45001: 2018 certifications throughout its world operations, validating its skill to constantly present spare components and companies on the high quality and regulatory requirements required by the maritime and offshore industries. That assure is additional fortified by the truth that Pelagus shouldn’t be attempting to exchange OEMs however is as an alternative working in tandem as a associate to reinforce their capability and add worth by reengineering conventional components utilizing information from their finish customers and getting merchandise again to them a lot quicker. It’s nonetheless a full OEM half, only a 3D printed one.
“For OEMs, the subcontracting or licensing of fabrication to an exterior provider shouldn’t be new to them,” Ong added. “Having a provider that is used additive manufacturing, so long as we’re in a position to clarify the dangers and accommodate for these contingencies, I believe that is one thing that they are very snug to do.”
The crew has grand and world ambitions. Within the subsequent few years, Pelagus desires to be the primary place that involves thoughts when a chief engineer on board one of many 40,000 vessels crusing all over the world proper now could be in want of a spare half. The imaginative and prescient is to have every of the foremost OEMs serving the maritime and offshore business on board the platform, and encourage the adoption of AM applied sciences to unravel a few of their largest challenges.
“The entire thought sooner or later is to verify AM is admittedly well-known within the maritime business, that is the main target for us proper now,” Ong concluded.
This text initially appeared inside TCT Europe Version Vol. 32 Subject 4 and TCT North American Version Vol. 10 Subject 4. Subscribe right here to obtain your FREE print copy of TCT Journal, delivered to your door six occasions a yr.
