Case Study: Seaspan’s Vancouver Drydock boosts welding productivity and quality with Novarc's Spool Welding Robot

Seaspan’s Vancouver Drydock Embraces Novarc's Welding Automation Technology to Revolutionize Manufacturing Processes

Seaspan’s Vancouver Drydock, a ship repair facility, faced the challenge of improving efficiency and reducing costs to meet tight project deadlines, especially for new environmental regulation upgrades like the Ballast Water Treatment System. To address this, they turned to Novarc Technologies Inc. and implemented their Spool Welding Robot (SWR) to automate their pipe welding processes.

Novarc's solution, the collaborative SWR, allowed welders to produce pipe joints automatically from root to cap without requiring programming knowledge. This resulted in a measurable productivity increase of over 400%, reducing the time to complete a pipe joint from four and a half hours to just 40 minutes. The implementation also ensured consistent, high-quality X-ray grade welds, eliminated the need to outsource work, and provided significant ergonomic benefits for the operators.

Seaspan’s Vancouver Drydock

Paul Hebson

VP & General Manager