Page 60: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2026)

SHIPYARD TOOLS

HOW HOW

PHYSICAL PHYSICAL

AIAI

All images courtesy Path Robotics

WILL REBUILD AMERICA'S

MARITIME INDUSTRIAL BASE

By Andy Lonsberry, CEO and co-founder, Path Robotics he ? rst thing that stands out when you walk through recognize shipbuilding as both an economic priority and a na- a modern shipyard isn't the technology – it's the tional security imperative.

sheer scale of the work and the size of the parts go- The urgency is hard to ignore. The U.S. has gone from ing into these massive ships the size of city blocks. building 5% of the world’s ocean-going commercial ships in

T I recently visited a Korean shipyard watching teams the 1970s to building about 0.2% today, according to McK- of workers join two 50-foot-tall, 100,000-pound hull sections insey. Beijing now operates the world's largest navy, ? elding into place. This particular shipyard does this every day, build- more than 370 warships compared with roughly 296 in the ing up to 40 ships a year. U.S. ? eet, according to CSIS.

Seeing that kind of scale ? rsthand puts into perspective just America already knows how to design world-class ships. how much coordination, labor, and industrial capacity it takes The pressing challenge is increasing the industrial capacity to to keep a yard operating at full speed. Huge steel structures build them faster and at a scale we’ve never seen before.

stretch across the yard while teams of people tackle hundreds of tasks simultaneously. Every weld represents years of expe- Capacity Has Become the Limiting Factor rience, and every section under construction is part of a much Order books continue to grow across both naval and commer- larger e? ort to keep production moving. What also becomes cial programs, hitting 191 million tons in Q1 2026, according clear is that there is no shortage of work. to the Baltic and International Maritime Council. But U.S. pro-

Across the maritime industry, demand is accelerating. Na- duction capacity has become the industry's greatest constraint.

val modernization, commercial vessel construction, autono- The U.S. Navy expansion to a larger Golden Fleet is expect- mous maritime systems and critical infrastructure projects are ed to require roughly 250,000 new workers across the mari- all expanding at the same time. Policymakers increasingly time industrial base over the next decade. At the same time, 60 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • August 2026

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