Marine Shipyard Invests in Vision Welding Portal

Located in the northeast coast of the U.S., Senesco Marine Shipyard LLC (North Kingstown, RI), a Reinauer Transportation Company, has quickly made a name for itself as the premier shipyard for new construction and vessel repair. Consisting of 26 acres of Narragansett Bay waterfront property, this shipyard has created a small but highly efficient shipyard capable of producing a vast array of vessels for their customers’ needs.

Since 1999, the shipyard has been building steel vessels to regulatory standards. They base their success on the quality of boats and to the strict compliance of contracted delivery times of vessels. Senesco Marine has successfully built and delivered on-time nearly two dozen 60K, 80K and 100K barrel double-hulled fuel and chemical barges with accompanying ATB Tugs for clients, and is constructing a current line of 100K barrel double-hulled fuel and chemical barges with accompanying ATB Tugs.

Senesco needed more capacity and decided to increase their throughput by purchasing a flexible, yet capable gantry that improves productivity and reduces man hours per vessel. To boost their fabrication, the shipyard recently decided to invest in a productive and efficient PEMA® Welding Portal from Pemamek Oy Ltd (Loimaa, Finland), a hi-tech twin robot welding gantry automation system for welding double bottoms and subassemblies.

Welding double bottom structures takes plenty of hours; the work is dirty and very tough for welders. To make the job more productive and ergonomic for their welders, Senesco Marine uses the automated PEMA WeldControl 200 Vision Welding Portal, a user-friendly programming method for robotized welding of subassemblies and open block structures, with two Yaskawa robots integrated with Lincoln Electric Power Wave power sources for the welding systems.

“The next step for us is to produce not only quality built vessels, but at an increased pace to meet the needs of our customers. We currently are in a continuing-build program for our current customers and, at the same time, are looking at new work for potential new customers. To be able to do this, we are making the investment in this Welding Portal to increase the throughput and reduce the time required to complete these vessels, which leaves room for even more opportunities. We are excited about this step of automation for the shipyard and are looking forward to the relationship with PEMA,” said Michael J. Foster, the vice president and general manager of Senesco.

Senesco Marine Shipyard LLC, 10 Macnaught Street, North Kingstown, RI 02852, 401-295-0373, www.senescomarine.com.

Pemamek Oy Ltd, Lamminkatu 47, PO Box 50, 32201 Loimaa, Finland, 358-2-760-771, [email protected], www.pemamek.com.