Recently, according to China Merchants Jingling Shipyard (Weihai) Co. Ltd. (“CMJL (Weihai)”), the company will spend more than RMB 400 million to build a new digitalized green smart factory, and the foundation stone of the new factory will be laid at the end of March. And it is planned to complete the construction and put into operation at the end of December.
It is understood that the green intelligent factory covers an area of 92,000 square meters and adopts 5G+industrial Internet technology, which will realize digital and intelligent full-process management for every link from steel plate warehousing, discharging, group processing to pre-outfitting, with a direct reduction of 75% of the labor cost, and the capacity of 5,000 tons of flat and straight segments per month will be a new record in the industry. In particular, the factory adopts data to reconstruct the genes of shipbuilding, and will become the first digitalized green intelligent factory in the domestic shipbuilding industry.
According to Ou Shubo, chief engineer of CMJL (Weihai), this year the company has successfully received an order for a high-end luxury cruise ship with all-electric propulsion. This large order marks the company’s leap from “hybrid ship” to “pure electric ship”.
The cruise ship does not have a shaft propulsion system and is entirely powered by batteries driving the propellers. It can “swap batteries” for extended range when docked at a port. Ou Shubo stated, “The shipowner required that the underwater noise during navigation must not disturb marine life. It took us a full 15 months to overcome the technical challenges of this ‘underwater silent mode’.”
It is reported that CMJL (Weihai) has increased its R&D investment by an annual average of 32.1% in the past three years, and has overcome 12 key technologies such as green energy, electronic control system, etc., and controlled the noise in some cabins to 35 decibels, which is a “cruise ship level standard”.
Currently, CMJL (Weihai) has hand-held order book up to 2028, and construction of two luxury cruise class ro-pax vessels will start in June.