PERTH robotic company FBR is negotiating with Samsung Heavy Industries for a joint development to apply its technology in the shipbuilding industry.
In an announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange on 26 February, FBR said it had successfully completed a demonstration of its technology to Samsung Heavy Industries.
It was now moving forward with negotiations for a joint development agreement.
Samsung, the shipbuilding company based in South Korea manufactures large size commercial vessels including crude oil tankers, container vessels, bulk carriers and offshore floating units such as FPSO, FLNG and drill ships.
The ASX statement said Samsung had recognised FBR’s expertise and success in the development and implementation of long-boom automated robotics in outdoor environments and had approached FBR to undertake a joint development of automated solutions in the shipbuilding industry.
Vice president of offshore proposals for Samsung, Antonio Yun, said when he saw FBR’s DST technology he thought it could be a game changer for the automation of the large-scale outdoor manufacturing processes used for material movement and precision positioning activities.
“Automation of certain processes is expected to substantially speed up our manufacturing processes and will help to free up our skilled workers to focus on other aspects of ship building,” Mr Yun said.
FBR has been in discussion with Samsung since April 2024 in connection with the potential development of automation concepts for use in the shipbuilding process.
In a technical and engineering study Samsung hosted FBR at its facilities in South Korea for technical assessments of its existing manual processes and commercial discussions and FBR investigated potential robotic solutions for automating aspects of Samsung’s manual processes.
It delivered a report to Samsung describing high level potential design concepts to automate its machines.
In February Samsung followed up with a visit to FBR’s premises in Perth to witness FBR’s DST technology in operation with a demonstration of the potential application of FBR’s robotic systems for the shipbuilding industry.
