Customer Stories

PEMA welding automation solutions bring productivity to Marketex marine shipyard

Estonian Marketex Marine acquired two PEMA automation solutions to boost double-bottom, profile and web production

After the investement, the company has been able to take in more orders and raise productivity significantly.

Challenge: Demand for bigger production capacity in double-bottom structures.

Solution: PEMA VRWP-X2 16000, PEMA WeldControl 200 Create

Benefit: Improved capacity and profitability.

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Visual Robot Welding Portal for Ship Panel Welding

“We need to be alert on new technologies and how we can use that to improve our competitiveness”

For Marketex Marine the biggest barges can be 70 meters long and 19 meters wide

Marketex Marine, a solely owned company operating within the BLRT Grupp, is an Estonian maritime construction provider specialized in manufacturing mono and multihull vessels for offshore wind farm services, fish farming and port services. Today, the company employs 120 professionals at its shipyard, located in Tallinn.

One of the shipyard’s main projects to fabricate is fish feeding barges. During the past decade, Marketex Marine has manufactured over 350 barges for the fish farming industry.

“At Marketex Marine, we have a strong background in maritime industry. As the company is growing and global competition gets tougher, we need to be alert on new technologies and how we can use that to improve our competitiveness,” said Dmitri Gornostajev, Member of the Board of Marketex Marine OÜ.

For Marketex Marine the biggest barges can be 70 meters long and 19 meters wide. Additionally, as the industry is moving more and more towards digitalization, the company started face challenges in finding skilled workforce and maintaining efficient production.

“We started looking for options to automate our production and decrease the amount of manual work at our shipyard. We were too depended on qualified workers and the costs were getting too high,” commented Dmitri.

”Competition will be always tough, but now with these solutions, we have raised our competitiveness and become even more attractive to our customers.”

PEMA VRWP-X2 12000/2, designed for high-quality double-bottom production, is equipped with two robots and is controlled with user-friendly PEMA WeldControl 200, which adds efficiency, production safety and enables smooth production flow.

Raising the level of automation – More efficiency and profitability

To add efficiency, profitability and increase the level of automation at the shipyard, Marketex Marine invested in PEMA VRWP-X2 12000/2 and PEMA WMP 12000. The solutions were delivered and installed in 2018.

“Now, we are able to take in more orders and raise our productivity significantly. We are now using two operators instead of 12 welders. Their expertise can be now used for other production tasks,” comments Dmitri.

PEMA VRWP-X2 12000/2, designed for high-quality double-bottom production, is equipped with two robots and is controlled with user-friendly PEMA WeldControl 200, which adds efficiency, production safety and enables smooth production flow. The solution is able to weld units with the maximum width of 12 meters and hight up to 2 meters.

PEMA WMP 12000 is used to install and tack-weld the longitudinal and transversal profiles and webs. The mobile portal has rotating assembly carriage with lifting hoists, as well as pulling cylinder and magnets in order to ensure easy stiffener assembly.

“Our cooperation with Pemamek went very well. We had additional requests for the solution, which were also fulfilled. The start-up for both of the solutions was efficient and good. In robotics there’s always a lot to learn, but after good start-up, we’ve had a big learning curve and training is now done by our own,” said Dmitri Gornostajev.

In addition to Pemamek’s turn-key solution deliveries, Marketex Marine has extensive PEMA service included with PEMA robotic help-desk service. The service package includes remote-control system, PEMA robot team’s remote assistance and also Pemamek’s local service partner’s support.

“Competition will be always tough, but now with these solutions, we have raised our competitiveness and become even more attractive to our customers,” summarized Dmitri.

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