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Alumeco delivers large amounts of aluminium to a German shipyard that uses the lightweight material for building high-speed military boats. Security of supply are key words in this collaboration.

The German shipyard is a huge production, where waiting time, as in all other productions, is costly. Exactly for this reason, the shipyard places great emphasis on security of supply of the agreed quantities and materials:

"Security of supply is important for the customer, and it is up to us to ensure that neither wind, nor weather or anything else prevents the agreed delivery. It is a very big production, which should not stand still. Normally, we receive orders 14 days in advance with exact requirements for how the material is to be loaded for transport," says Morten Borup Elkjær, project manager at Alumeco.

“The order will be unloaded plate by plate in a very specific order. This ensures that the plates can be lifted by suction cup in an order that has been planned to fit in with the customer's production. There is also a reference number on each plate, which is placed in different ways. Packaging is, of course, time-consuming, but it is extremely important for the customer. At the same time, the logistic requirements involve certain interaction between the customer and our warehouse and logistics."

Fast, lightweight boats with big engine

The German shipyard customer who remains anonymous delivers the fast aluminium boats to military maritime customers.

“The boats the customer constructs mainly for Asian and Arab countries are lightweight with a big engine. The high-speed for the boats, which are used in the hunt for terrorists and pirates, comes from the engine,” says Morten Borup Elkjær and adds:

“The customer uses only aluminium to make the boats lightweight, which coupled with the large motor gives the boats their high speed.”

Very large plates

The plates ordered by the shipyard customer are very large.

“The customer receives quite big plates from us - 2 x 8 and 3 x 10 m - which corresponds to a truck load of 40 tons of aluminium. When the customer receives the plates, they are placed on a huge cutting table. Here they are cut into items the size of a 20-Danish krone coin. The items are then moved into a hall where they are assembled. Finally, they become part of a boat, which stands in a hall with a scaffold. From bottom to top, it is equivalent in size to a 7-storey building,” Morten Borup Elkjær rounds off about a partnership whose last delivery for now is in 2019. Before then, many tons of aluminium will be delivered, because aluminium is the lightweight solution for fast boats in the water.