Kranendonk Productions Systems - Shipyard Automation and Robotized Production Systems

Kranendonk Production Systems is a key supplier to the worldwide shipbuilding industry, providing shipyard automation, robotized production systems, and a broad range of welding and cutting systems, primarily for efficient one-piece and small batch production.

Shipyard automation, robotized production systems and offline programming software

The most important element in Kranendonk's shipyard automation success is its dedicated offline programming software. Besides automatic offline programming, the unique software in Kranendonk production systems also balances the workload automatically for multi-robot systems (without any chance of collision), giving you process leadership, on a smaller shop-floor, with shorter throughput times.

Shipbuilding robotized production systems

With over 25 years' experience, Kranendonk has become a leading supplier of robotized production systems in the shipbuilding, steel construction and offshore industries.

Its shipbuilding robotized production systems include:

• Profile cutting line
• Panel welding and web welding line
• Double hull welding gantry

Shipyard automation: shipbuilding profile cutting line

Kranendonk's profile cutting line can handle and cut automatically U, I, H, T, tubular and bulb profiles, thereby drastically reducing cycle times (by up to eight to ten times). Demand for reduced batch sizes (even one-piece production), working areas and variations in profile types without setup times are requirements that can be fulfilled by a robot connected to a powerful offline program.

Since the system completes the entire cycle in one operation with consistent quality, operations like transportation, manipulation, tracking, buffering, marking and toe-cleaning can easily be combined.

Shipyard automation: panel welding and web welding line for stiffener welding

Automatic welding of longitudinal and transversal stiffeners for sub-assemblies requires all units to be of an excellent quality, both with respect to hardware and software, to secure a high-quality welding result. Depending on the application, multiple robots, stiffener mounting portals, a dynamic safety system or a transportation system can be employed.

Integrating Kranendonk's shipyard automation software with your current CAD/CAM engineering program drastically reduces work preparation, and no expensive production stops will occur. Continuous production can therefore be achieved.

Double hull welding gantry

The double hull welding gantry facilitates robotic welding of extreme product sizes as double bottom hull sections (for example 24m x 16m x 3m). All external and internal robot axes are integrated into one unit, meaning the system works as one macro sized robot. Thanks to the stability and motion performance of the gantry, the system offers full control over all weld positions. The sections are automatically programmed by RinasWeld.

Unique shipbuilding programming software

Depending on application, shipyard automation level and the number of robotized production systems for welding, various shipbuilding programming methods can be used. The two basic methods – developed and supplied by Kranendonk – are ARAC and RINASWELD.

ARAC is a parameterized programming system, where the operator may directly create the work order, or where the work orders are created by importing and filtering CAD data. Manual input is considerably lower than robotized production system time, thus the system can work without any production stops.

The ARAC system also takes care of the online production control. Production processes can be monitored and, if needed, corrected through a simple, easy to use 100% graphical user interface.

RINASWELD is a model-based system which automatically generates collision-free robot programs. In practice this means that the RinasWeld software creates a collision-free robotized production system from the customer's CAD data with virtually no programming time. The system also automatically recognizes the correct predefined weld situation and calculates the correct robot path.

Besides automatic offline programming, the unique software in Kranendonk production systems also balances the workload automatically for multi-robot systems (without any chance of collision), giving process leadership, on a smaller shop-floor with shorter throughput times.

Reliable shipbuilding robotized production systems

Kranendonk's shipbuilding robotized production systems have proven themselves to be very reliable, accurate and easy to operate at more than 250 locations worldwide. For information or project references please contact Kranendonk.