The need for production efficiency through manpower saving without relying on welding skills continues to increase, while the inheritance of skills from master mechanics in shipbuilding is becoming a serious challenge. Whether welding robotization, a measure to meet the aforementioned needs, can be realized in shipbuilding depends on how fast and accurately job data can be created for welding robots that can weld diverse targets. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) developed an automatic off‐line teaching system that creates job data for welding robots using a 3D model produced by 3D‐CAD MATES (Mitsubishi Advanced Total Engineering system of Ships) shipbuilding software, which was successfully applied to shipbuilding as welding robots system.
