Unlike in other industries, where businesses are willing to look at returns months or years down the road, the best shipbuilders aim to see ROI on the current project, or even the current block about to be cut, no matter what.
Technology implementation cannot impact the delivery of any existing or future project. The most successful capital investments will be those that can be stood up quickly and deliver value from day one.
Shipbuilding’s ROI Challenge
The challenge is to use the best available tools, but without lengthy implementation or adjustment periods.
With so many different tools, scripts, and systems already in place within a shipyard and with existing ongoing projects that cannot be disrupted, any new solution must work within that existing reality.
The keys to seeing a quick ROI in the world of digital shipbuilding are:
- Authoring data only once.
- Re-using information across departments, systems, and hulls.
- Streamlining processes to precisely what is needed.
- Have pre-configured data with item types, including parts, assemblies, drawings, spools, systems, and nests.
- Be ready out of the box to show engineering, planning, and production teams the most essential information.
Getting Up to Speed Quickly
Since our founding over 30 years ago, SSI solutions have been built on industry-standard, commercial-grade platforms that are familiar and make it possible for users to become proficient in weeks rather than months. Microsoft SQL Server, Autodesk, and Aras foundations fit naturally with your team’s current skills and with your organization’s existing security and backup procedures.
I’m an expert in many different CAD software platforms and have taken numerous courses before. I can confidently say that the SSI ShipConstructor course is by far the best with its well laid out lessons and instructions.
Bill Bailey, Detail Designer
When designers and engineers are already familiar with the underlying technologies and interfaces, the amount of time it takes for your organization to start seeing clear benefits is minimized, and your teams are more productive than with any other shipbuilding CAD solution on the market.
See how establishing a training program that incorporated SSI MyLearning and addressed shipbuilding challenges helped Genoa Design International achieve:
- Massive company growth.
- Success in remote onboarding.
- Shorter times to proficiency.
- Industry-leading training.
Typical enterprise implementation or integration projects in shipbuilding have ROI targets measured in years. Even then, they do not solve many of the challenges they set out to address. Our goal is to deliver incremental value to shipbuilders with ROI measured in months, not years.
Darren Larkins, co-CEO
PLM Implementation Success
See how an incremental approach allowed SSI and our partner Aras to implement a PLM solution at Ingalls Shipbuilding within only nine months.
Seeing Benefit from Day 1
Transitioning CAD, PLM, ERP, or any other system always adds additional risk. Picking the tools and strategies that make it possible to complete such a transition – in a way that reduces the time spent making the change – should be the number one priority for shipbuilders. An incremental overlay strategy is one way of mitigating these risks.
Having an open enterprise architecture that will support all current and future activities, especially the ones that we do not know of yet, is one strategy. It ensures that the benefits of innovation are immediate and don’t need to be replaced all over again down the road.
Another strategy is an overlay approach. By overlaying technical solutions during a transition period, it is possible to simultaneously adopt the new system while temporarily maintaining the old system. Doing so means that the additional benefits of a new system are unlocked right away, no functionality is lost. As processes switch over to the new system, the old one can be deprecated. The open architecture behind our solutions makes this incremental strategy possible. By consuming from any source and pushing data anywhere it needs to go, it’s easy to use data from existing sources without friction.
Ongoing Partnership
The shipbuilders who are most successful with their digital transformation engage work hand-in-hand with their technology partners. This is one of the keys to moving from a legacy mentality to a forward-looking, digitally-driven business. Organizations who choose to go it alone will find that a business cannot truly transform entirely from within. A strategic partnership between shipbuilders and solution providers makes it possible to achieve digital success.