Hyundai Heavy Industries Conducts In-House Quality Inspections Instead of Client Supervision

Signed Quality Assurance Agreement for 8 Ships with Client and American Bureau of Shipping

Hyundai Heavy Industries signed a ship quality assurance program business agreement with Asian shipping companies and the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) at its Ulsan headquarters on the 1st. Photo by Hyundai Heavy Industries

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghoon Jeong] Hyundai Heavy Industries will independently conduct ship quality inspections based on customer trust.

On the 1st, Hyundai Heavy Industries signed a business agreement for the HHI CQGP (Ship Quality Assurance Program) with Asian shipping companies and the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) at its headquarters in Ulsan.

According to this agreement, Hyundai Heavy Industries will build a total of eight ships applying the Ship Quality Assurance Program by 2024, including four 91,000㎥ LPG carriers and four 15,900 TEU (1 TEU is one 6-meter container) class container ships.

The core of the Ship Quality Assurance Program is that the shipyard independently constructs and delivers ships without supervision from the ordering party.

Until now, supervisors dispatched by the ordering party have overseen quality inspections throughout all processes until ship delivery at shipyards. Through this agreement, the shipyard will perform quality inspection tasks independently without supervision from the shipowner's inspectors.

This was possible because Hyundai Heavy Industries earned high trust from customers due to its technological expertise and quality management capabilities accumulated over the past 50 years. With the introduction of the Ship Quality Assurance Program, quality inspections can be conducted according to the shipyard's production schedule during the construction process, which is expected to improve productivity.

The application of the quality assurance program to eight ships was built on the successful pilot application of the same program to two ultra-large crude carriers (VLCC) ordered by the same client in October this year. Hyundai Heavy Industries deployed skilled technicians with over 30 years of quality management experience to perform the tasks on behalf of the ordering party, securing quality equivalent to the ordering party’s supervision through independent inspections, thereby gaining high trust from customers.

Hyundai Heavy Industries promises thorough quality management and plans to do its best to repay the trust given by the ordering party by also providing warranty extension services. Furthermore, through collaboration with classification societies and ordering parties, it plans to secure objective quality data and establish a digital quality management system for building high-quality ships based on this data.

Lee Sang-kyun, CEO of Hyundai Heavy Industries, said, "This will be an opportunity for Hyundai Heavy Industries’ shipbuilding capabilities to gain even greater trust," and added, "We promise perfect quality to repay our customers’ trust."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.