Through its mega-block technology, Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has dramatically decreased ship construction time and raised production efficiency. In addition, through the introduction of this technology, SHI has broken with the previous concept of building ships on land, thus making it possible for the first time to build ships on the water.
A block is a part that includes all parts of the ship, from the head to the rear. The blocks completed through the processing, assembling and fitting of iron plates, which are then moved to docks to be taken into ships. Up to now, a crane could only carry up to 500 tons to the docks, meaning that the crane would have to go back and forth in order to move the blocks to the docks to build a single ship.
SHI made 3,000-ton large blocks at a size that was 5-6 times larger than the previously-used blocks, and these were carried within the dock using offshore cranes. This is the concept of mega-blocks, which enabled the enhancement of facility efficiency and a dramatic reduction in construction time.
For example, in the past 90 blocks were required to build a 100,000 ton oil tanker, but by using mega-block technology, only ten blocks are needed. This has shortened the ship construction period within the dock from three months to 1.5 months. This mega-block technology, which uses an ultra-large offshore crane that can hold up to 3,000 tons of ultra-large blocks, was made possible through a change of mindset. Many firms are now benchmarking SHI's technologies.
SHI was able to maximize production volume through this technique within a limited area, and also was able to build tens of ships more per year using the floating docks.