The ability to free up highly skilled workers to focus on complex production tasks rather than tedious and menial ones is a major win for any shipyard. Why then, have so few shipyards been able to embrace this innovation? Part of the reason lies within the detailing and control of the production information generated to control shop floor machines, which can be time consuming and error prone.
Article originally published in Inside Marine.
Automated robotic cutting, bending and welding of steel components in ship construction has been possible for years. Likewise, reducing the amount of time designers must spend interacting with mainly 2D production documentation or manipulating file formats allows both for better accuracy and more efficiency in creating and revising the model and in automating the manufacturing process. How can shipyards take a step toward bridging those two realities?
Incorporating Change
The level of complexity in every phase of construction and the workflow of a shipyard will always vary, but the desire to incorporate automation where possible remains constant.
For decades there has been a dependence on manually created outputs, which in turn drive manual tasks for the production team. This can mean updating multiple drawings based on time-consuming workflows to get the output data back on to the shopfloor or manually measuring and marking up plate from a 2D drawing. For example, opening thousands of spool and assembly drawings, annotating and validating them is slow and tedious. Such tasks represent a large time burn for designers and as a result, a more expensive ship design process.
Often the answer proposed to some of these manual workflow issues is to incorporate third party software – which in turn may create bigger changes to shipyard workflows to ensure compatibility. On projects where schedules are aggressive and budgets are tight, this degree of upheaval is a non-starter.
Removing the need to introduce third-party software or reducing the amount of user interactions needed to create an output by driving this information directly from the digital model is an exciting step in the right direction.
It would be unrealistic to suggest that it is possible to create such outputs with no physical intervention at all, but we think that a strategy of ‘80% no touch’ is achievable and in sight.
Automation will not eliminate the requirement for the user to interact physically with some of the outputs from the model, but the aim is to make it faster for them to access, modify or verify information accurately and efficiently.
Reducing the Pain Points
The complexities of shipbuilding, non-repeating production tasks and the fact that humans are still better suited to complex cutting/welding/bending means we are still working towards complete and transparent automation.
But we do have the knowledge and information required to reduce some of the pain points. By using a rich 3D product model, it is possible to create more efficient production outputs and communicate directly with the machinery in place in most shipyards.
The philosophy behind the ‘80% no touch’ strategy is simple: we enable creation of the deliverables that are required to accurately build the ship. This includes traditional production documentation as well as an increasing capacity to drive machines on the shop floor based on data from the Marine Information Model.
The ability to drive production machinery directly from information stored in the ShipConstructor Marine Information Model creates the potential for tremendous efficiency and accuracy. This approach can reduce, or in some cases eliminate, the risk of human errors.
For example, improving the annotation tools used in production drawings includes the ability to only label visible parts within a viewport, saving the user time as they do not need to assess and delete labels that are not required.
By pre-defining what information they want to extract in the form of style-based labels from within the ship model – we provide the ability to include unique data that might otherwise have to be added manually. The user can then quickly add this to the drawings, providing a highly efficient means of getting information to the shopfloor.
The ability to pre-determine accessory packages reduces the time required for a traditionally very manual process and because they can be assigned to a label, the designer can quickly add them to the production drawings.
Increasing Automation
A major initiative that shipyards have sought to embrace is to consolidate the existing files generated from the model for integration with downstream production machines. Consolidated files that contain the information for vessel parts will provide a standard way for shipyards and industry partners to consume the data and develop integrations that can drive production machinery directly from the ship model with as little manual intervention as possible.
Providing streamlined compatibility to third-party software and ensuring the ShipConstructor model is the single source of truth offers the potential to massively improve shipyard workflows.
Standardizing files generated for downstream machines by consolidating the part information in a standard format allows shipyards to implement a seamless integration to machinery. This also allows shipyards to access the part information from these standardized files, preventing the need to retrieve the information directly from the database creating a scenario whereby updates to the database won’t affect existing integrations and workflows.
As part of these developments and others we offer the ability to take advantage of modern machines capabilities such as double-sided marking of plate, as well as the flexibility of giving production the option of what is to be marked on either side.
More specifically a recent improvement to the plate marking was the ability to include weld marking. This will reduce time on the production floor which is currently spent on manual effort to measure and mark the weld locations for both welding and quality control purposes.
The ability to drive the mark lines directly to the plate, decreases the chance of an improper install of parts/ welds at the fabrication stage as the need to manually mark the plate is eliminated.
Pressing matters
Ships are complex forms with extreme curvature, making the Nieland press and its operators extremely important to the shipbuilding process. Currently there is a huge dependence on third party software to create expansion calculations that compliments other information required by the operator. The elongation data must then be transferred on to the plate manually ahead of Nieland press operations.
Moving Nieland press development into ShipConstructor provides users with the ability to avoid using third party software, instead relying on a single system to produce the elongation data required and offering the ability to automatically mark up the plate. This is a significant improvement which greatly assists the Nieland press operator, allowing them to focus more on the other complexities of creating the required curvature sections.
For plates that require higher elongation, operators prefer to use templates to assess the accuracy of the curve over the elongation data per location on the plate. SSI offers the ability to create templates in longitudinal and transverse directions and the ability to slot them together. This will give users the ability to create an ‘egg crate’ slotted template and enable positioning of longitudinal and transverse templates from within ShipConstructor to verify accuracy prior to forming complex curved plates.
Conclusion
Taking a shipbuilding project from concept to completion is a long and complex process. Task-specific software support of the people and tools is the path innovative shipbuilders are taking to simplify this complex process. Shipyards will always rely on the skills and expertise of people in construction but if we can make the process easier, then the result will be more efficient and higher quality builds.
Decades of experience in the industry lead us to recognise that change is a reality and solutions must adapt to the changing needs of the yards. Our strategy of enabling operators to drive machinery with as little manual intervention as possible seeks to create efficiencies and keep shipyards up to date with the latest technology and approaches that are available to support their projects.