To be at the cutting edge of shipbuilding and technology, we need to be aware of what is on the horizon for the future of our industry. The articles and papers below are how we share our findings to the rest of the industry through technical magazines and academic conferences. Read for yourself what the future holds.
Cutting Edge Technology
Despite being an industry full of bright and qualified people, the shipbuilding industry is often slower to adopt and develop new technologies compared to other sectors such as the plant, aerospace and automotive industries. This paper will explore the trends in the relative adoption of a number of technologies including laser scanning, digital prototyping and shop floor 3D.
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Best of Breed Software
The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits and challenges inherent in a recent shift in how Integrated Shipbuilding Environments (ISEs) are created and deployed amongst the world’s leading shipbuilders, offshore experts and marine-focused software vendors. This paper will also outline a case study in which this approach has been employed.
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Automation of Oil Rig Fabrication
Despite worldwide financial crisis, a significant amount of oil rig fabrication work continues to prosper due to the huge order book backlog. Whilst some projects have been canceled or delayed because of financing, the on-going projects are now under bigger pressure to save time and cost of fabrication.
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A Scalable Approach to 3D Visualization
There are advantages to having an accurate and detailed 3D visualization model of a vessel available throughout every stage of the shipbuilding process. However, many approaches are too costly, complex, rigid or difficult. For instance, shipbuilding specific 3D visualization technology is often limited compared to solutions from major CAD vendors that are targeted at a wider audience.
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Empowered Engineering
Shipyards use multiple computer applications to create and process information but sharing data between programs is problematic. Attempts have been made to solve this problem via manual processes or costly, yet incomplete, service based integrations. Other times, a monolithic, single-vendor approach has been tried but inadequacies of the component parts have led to other challenges.
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Leveraging Engineering Information
Every piece of information created during the engineering of a vessel can be leveraged elsewhere in the shipbuilding process but varying representations of the data are required for different software applications and business processes. Unfortunately, overcoming that challenge is usually costly and cumbersome.
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Open Architecture
Every process in a shipyard requires data. Despite numerous attempts, there is not now, and realistically never will be a single monolithic software program that is optimal for all tasks. In situations where the value of tight integration is paramount, an application from a single vendor is ideal but in situations where the performance disparity is too great compared to separate best-of-breed applications, external programs are used.
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Ship Design, Engineering, and Construction in 2030 and Beyond.
Technologies such as 3D Laser Scanning, Augmented Reality, Enhanced Visual Communication, Automation on the Shop Floor, Internet of Things, Materials Enhancements, Cloud Computing, 3D Printing, and Generative Design are all rapidly improving and more importantly, are set to converge in a synergistic way, enabling an explosion of technology that will affect all industries including shipbuilding.
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Utilizing CAD/CAM Models for Ongoing Weight Estimation and Control
Controlling the weight of a vessel over the design and engineering life cycle is critical, but is an ongoing challenge for shipbuilders. Excellent tools exist for both weight estimation and control and design and engineering; however the area where these two meet is often filled with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or databases developed in house by individual shipyards. These approaches leave much to be desired.
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Intuitive Weld Management
Tracking and managing welds through all stages of shipbuilding is usually a disconnected, inefficient, laborious and error-prone process. The solution to this weakness is to immerse the weld management process within a 3D Product Data Model environment with underlying software that is associative and that has an open architecture.
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