The problem a site learns by buying equipment
The frightening part of bringing in new equipment is not the price. It is the question will this actually run on our volume. Until now every bit of that risk sat with the customer. The integrator withdraws once acceptance is signed, the machine stops the moment site conditions shift even slightly, and service calls come back slowly. That is how idle automation equipment has piled up in shipyard after shipyard.
The root of it is not diligence but the shape of the contract. A company that sells equipment books its revenue the moment the sale closes. Whether the machine runs after that makes no difference to its accounts. You cannot expect uptime from a company with no stake in uptime.
So we changed the contract: you do not pay for what you do not use
The LiOps robot welding crew is a welding service, not an equipment sale. The billing unit is metres welded. Robots, sensors, software, maintenance, upgrades and remote operation are all included, and your capital spend is zero. No volume means no invoice. Work that falls short of the standard is not accepted.
- 01You do not pay for what you do not useWe bill only for the metres we weld.
- 02No capital approval neededIt comes out of your outsourcing progress-payment budget.
- 03If it does not run, the loss is oursWe carry the uptime risk.
Under this structure the cost of idle time is ours. That is why we cannot sell and walk away. Our revenue only exists while the robot is running, so protecting uptime is our business. If a cheaper or better robot appears during the contract, we swap it in ourselves. Your terms stay the same and the service simply improves.
You pay the way you always have: progress payments
Shipyards have paid for outsourced work by completed volume for decades. Crews and in-house partners are paid not for hours worked but for blocks completed. The robot welding crew enters that same progress-payment line item as one more partner crew. No new budget category, no capital approval, no change to the procurement process.
The slot we take is already defined.
It is the one left open because nobody could be hired.
Because we fill unstaffed volume rather than displace existing workers, you can start without friction with your own crews or partner firms. We work alongside those partners. Site operations and safety stay with them; robots and software are ours.
The terms
How far we have taken it
At HD Hyundai Samho we completed verification of free-form welding, including flat butt welds. It was a task another contractor and consortium had judged impossible.
Spatial MES, which turns the real state of a site into data, has finished a paid proof of concept and a pilot at Hanwha Ocean and moved into deployment. A proof of concept at HD Hyundai Samho is complete and one at Samsung Heavy Industries is planned. Outside shipbuilding we are extending into equipment and block fabrication sites such as Hantech and Union.
Why the technology works is taken up in Robots already do the easy welds, and the method behind reaching 100% in A robot at 70% scores zero on the floor.
We start with a pilot
The first contract is deliberately small. We start with a defined section and a defined volume, confirm coverage and quality by measurement, and only then move to a full contract. The principle holds in the pilot too. No result, no invoice.