Physical Product News

Decades of innovation has earned Wing Inflatables its place among top manufacturers of sponsons, tubes, collars and rubber craft. While the company maintains this reputation today, the Wing Group has also grown beyond it after an ownership switch set in motion a number of major changes that have helped to both expand the company and alter its DNA.In past decades, under the leadership of founder and now-former owner Bill Wing, the California company and its polyurethane rafts and air-holding tubes, and later air/foam hybrid collar, had revolutionized the rigid inflatable industry.

A prototype of the world’s first class approved ship’s propeller manufactured using 3D printing techniques has been produced by a cooperative consortium of companies that includes Damen Shipyards Group, Rotterdam Additive Manufacturing LAB (RAMLAB), Promarin, Autodesk and Bureau Veritas. The 1,350mm diameter propeller – named WAAMpeller – was fabricated from a Nickel Aluminium Bronze (NAB) alloy at RAMLAB in the Port of Rotterdam. The propeller was produced with the Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) method using a Valk welding system and Autodesk software.

Internal quality standard helps company meet global target of reducing claims to below 1% and set new industry benchmark for best practice. OW Bunker has  announced that it has reduced global claims1 on physical products to 0.9% for Q1 2014. This is down from an average of 1.6% in 2013. The company set a target of reducing global claims to below 1% when it introduced its own Global Quality Standard (GQS) at the end of 2012 to ensure the quality of products supplied by its physical operations on a global basis.

OW Bunker, suppliers of marine fuels and lubricants worldwide, launch a new standard to ensure the quality of products supplied by its physical division. The move is part of strategy to drive annual global claims below 1%, an unprecedented figure in the bunker industry. In order to achieve this, customers will now be provided with a specification analysis on a minimum of 90% of all physical product orders, delivered prior to the usual testing procedures conducted by an external fuel oil analysis provider.

P&O Nedlloyd has decided to further expand the relationship with chart agent Marine Press of Canada. All charts, publications and electronic charts for the fleet of over 40 container vessels will now be supplied by the new chart agent. P&O Nedlloyd already use the chart correction system Digitrace from Marine Press onboard all vessels. “Digitrace is working very well onboard, so this move was natural for us. We will now achieve a much more streamlined process by getting both the physical product and the corrections/updates from one single source” confirms the P&O Nedlloyd Manager Nautical & Audits. “We were looking for a reliable system for the chart supply and we are certain we will now receive exactly this from Marine Press of Canada.