This is a significant honor. Congratulations to Pat!
Elected by the Industry
Congratulations to SSI’s Director of US Operations Patrick Roberts. Shipbuilders from across the United States have elected him Vice Chair of the new National Shipbuilding Research Program (NSRP) Business Technologies Panel.
Recognition from his Peers
This election is as a recognition by his peers of the practical results that Pat has delivered during years of involvement in NSRP programs. Since 1998, Pat has worked on many projects to help reduce US Navy lifecycle and acquisition costs. These projects have led to advancements in US shipbuilding in business practices, IT infrastructure, ship design, ship production, welding and workforce development. For instance, Pat was heavily involved in a project to develop a shipyard-neutral data schema and format that automatically translates material data attributes from a CAD/Product Information Model system into an Enterprise Resource System.
Real Results
Examples that are more recent include Pat’s work on two NSRP projects: Dynamic Change Awareness and Computer Aided Robotic Welding (CAR-W). The Dynamic Change Awareness Project is about streamlining Change Implementation to reduce cycle time, rework and waste. The impressive results of this project will be unveiled later this summer while the CAR-W project has already proven to be an astounding success—at a recent demonstration, it was shown that Wolf Robotics welding machines can now be driven directly from CAD software output!
New Panel, New Responsibilities
The experience Pat has developed in working on so many projects fit well with his role as Vice Chair of the newly created Business Technologies Panel. This new panel merges the NSRP Business Processes and Information Technologies Panels and has responsibility for research and development to enhance:
- Shipyard Business Processes
- Data Content and Configuration Management
- Information Assurance and Cybersecurity
- Shipbuilding Informatics (Data Analysis)
- Enterprise Process and Tool Integration
- Model-Based Enterprise (MBE) Processes
Experience in Action
A signification portion of the panel’s research will be about sharing and integrating data across multiple technology platforms from Engineering to other software systems. Pat’s training as an industrial engineer and years of experience in implementing IT solutions in a shipbuilding context will help him to serve the panel so that US Shipbuilders can continue to enhance efficiency.