Japan’s Imabari Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. has entered into an agreement with the Spanish company Sener Ingenieria y Sistemas S.A. for the permanent license to use the FORAN CAD/CAM System, a fundamental tool for the reduction of costs and the improvement of productivity in ship design and production.

The agreement is the continuation of a pilot project started in 2005. Imabari personnel first received training in FORAN at Tres Cantos, Madrid during four weeks. At the end of this training, in late November, work started at Marugame Headquarters with the 3D modeling of a VLCC engine room. The pilot ended with the generation of drawings and other production-related outputs.

Encouraged by the successful results of the pilot project, Imabari has planned the gradual and progressive implementation of FORAN for its group of shipyards. At the current stage, it will be first applied at Marugame Headquarters to the detail design of a new VLCC ship to be built by Saijo Shipyard.

With this new license agreement SENER continues in its line of making FORAN a major player in the field of ship design and production software in Japan.