A discussion on ship technology in the 1980s - Concluding remarks
I believe that those who have been present at the whole of this discussion meeting have found that it did succeed in putting across an integrated techno-economic view of the marine industries’ future. A still more detailed account will, of course, become available in the written version. Mr Denholm explained at the outset what a big contribution to the balance of payments the shipping industry makes, and will continue to make if and only if costs can be kept competitive. From this he concluded that research for the shipping industry should above all be directed towards matters such as planned maintenance systems, techniques for ship routing, and methods for modifying and adapting existing vessels. These are important matters but, as Mr Meek later reminded us, shipowners have been the real technical pioneers in the past for many new ship developments and no doubt will continue to be in the future. Dr Hurst made a projection of the world demand for ships in the 1980s, in which he forecast some definite expansion of demand in connexion with certain existing shipping uses, together with the appearance of some new uses such as the transport of semi-finished goods mass produced in the developed countries for assembly in areas of cheap labour. He ventured to forecast a world demand for new ships of some 50 million tonnes dwt per annum. He expected an increasing tendency to specialization of roles, while Dr Taylor has just forecast a similar tendency to specialization of shipyards. He envisaged a rather more inflexible pattern of operation for the ships of the 1980s. He expected the adoption of factory methods of production, and Mr Takezawa has just given us a brilliantly comprehensive vision of the form these methods may take.