SSI recently concluded meetings with Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards (VSY), Genoa Design, and InnovMarine regarding planning workflows for the implementation of “WorkShare Design” on projects under Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS).
HEPP Project
These meetings were part of a Government of Canada-funded program called the Horizontal Engineering Program Plan (HEPP) that seeks to increase shipbuilding efficiency and return on investment to taxpayers. The program does this by seeking ways to improve the overall engineering process of the NSS shipyards and associated supply chain of design and engineering companies. In this regard, SSI’s WorkShare Design software is an important tool for increasing efficiency and collaboration.
What is WorkShare Design?
WorkShare Design is a ShipConstructor software application developed by SSI that allows portions of the virtual 3D product model created in ShipConstructor to be captured, reused and shared. The portions of the model shared include the assembly sequence of how the parts of a ship are put together along with related production drawings and the underlying design intent.
Sister Ships
During a recent two-week workshop, SSI software experts, in conjunction with SSI dealer InnovMarine, worked together with the marine engineering firm Genoa Design to optimize specific processes to give VSY information it requires for production. Of specific focus was the creation of detailed workflows for applying WorkShare Design to the shipbuilding process.
Under the NSS, VSY is building three Offshore Fisheries Science Vessels (OFSVs) for the Canadian Coast Guard. Each ship will be similar but changes will need to be made on each hull. Therefore, each hull will require its own design. To efficiently accommodate this task, WorkShare Design will be used to copy the appropriate information from one project to another to reduce requirements for potential future rework.
Workflows to support quality and efficiency
Optimizing the implementation of WorkShare for maximum efficiency and quality were a key focus of the meetings. Because the companies were reusing and sharing work, details had to be determined regarding how to name parts and product hierarchies so that the correct hull could be identified. This involved agreeing upon and then fully documenting very specific workflows. The team worked collaboratively and cohesively, and these deliverables were completed ahead of schedule.
Success
All parties agreed that these meetings were a success.
“The two-week meetings at SSI are a great example of how companies can work together to enhance engineering efficiency and ensure quality,” says Saeed Hessami, Project Manager – Seaspan. “Optimizing how SSI’s ShipConstructor WorkShare program is used should lead to significant savings in time and effort. Process enhancements like this are at the heart of what HEPP represents.”