ASRY, the leading Bahrain ship-repair facility, has begun a major modernization programme which will involve substantial investments in equipment and yard improvements. Managing Director, Mazen Matar, says, “To ensure optimal customer satisfaction, ASRY must be able to provide the tools, equipment and facilities that will deliver our projects to the highest standards of safety, quality and scheduling. This initial investment package has been fast-tracked to ensure customers begin to feel the improvements in their projects immediately.”
ASRY has acquired a total of 100 Lincoln Flextec 650X welding machines, designed to achieve greater flexibility, productivity and quality. These are already in the yard, with training underway.
The yard’s fleet of cherry pickers has also been increased by the arrival of eight new units, providing safe access at heights of up to 42m. Night operations will see an improvement in productivity and safety with the supply of 400 new portable dock lights, and 1060 confined space lighting units, including explosion proof lights for hazardous environments. These all feature LED-based technology as part of the yard’s energy saving initiatives.
Operational efficiency is expected to be improved by the fitting of a GPS tracking system on all equipment and vehicles while installation of a new capacitor bank is underway, to manage excess energy and reduce energy costs across the whole yard. Meanwhile the machine shop will benefit from equipment upgrades in the form of new lathes offering improved accuracy, quality and productivity.
Further investments are planned, ASRY notes. Priorities include modernizing ASRY’s waste management systems and its Enterprise Resource Planning software.
ASRY reports a busy workload at present, in particular handling environmental refits. Scrubber retrofits projects are currently dominating maritime repair schedules due to recently implemented IMO regulations forcing vessel owners to reduce airborne emission levels, it says. ASRY had completed eight such projects by the end of 2019, and has “many more” on the order book in 2020.
