EUROPEAN COMMISSION

J OINT R ESEARCH C ENTRE

INSTITUTE FOR SY S TE MS , INFOR MATIC S & S AFE TY

State-of-the-Art report on:

The Automation and Integration

of Production Processes
in Shipbuilding

by:
Fivos ANDRITSOS
and
Juan PEREZ-PRAT

for the:
DG Enterprise, unit E.6

Administrative arrangement:
14707-1998-12 A1CA ISP BE

June 2000
 Glossary
2-D Two Dimensional
3-D Three Dimensional
AI Artificial Intelligence
ANSI American National Standards Institute
CAD Computer Aided Design
CAE Computer Aided Engineering
CAP Computer Aided Planning
CE Concurrent Engineering
CEPS Competitive Engineering & Production in Shipbuilding
CESA Committee of EU Shipbuilders' Associations
CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics
Cgt Compensated Gross Tons
CIM Computer Integrated Manufacturing
CNC Computerised Numerical Control
COREDES Committee of R&D in European Shipbuilding
CSG Constructive Solid Geometry
D Deliverable Item (plus reference number)
D.xx Deliverable Item No xx
DB Data Base
DG Directorate General
DIN Deutsches Institut für Normung
DoF Degree(s) of Freedom
Dwt Dead weight tons
EC European Commission
ECU European Currency Unit
EDM Electronic Document (or Data) Management
EEA European Economic Area
EI Environment Institute
EPD Electronic Product Definition
ERP Enterprise Resource Planning
ESPRIT European Strategic Programme in Research in IT
EU European Union
FCAW Flux Cored Arc Welding
FCW Flux Cored Wire (welding)
FEA Finite Element Analysis
FP Framework Program (research)
FSW Friction Stir Welding
G .. Giga: a billion units of ..
Gt Gross tons
HMI Human-Machine Interface (same as MMI)
HPCN High Performance Computing and Networking
HTML Hyper-Text Machine Language
HW Hardware
ICIMS Intelligent Control & Integrated Manufacturing Systems
ICT Information and Communication Tools
IFR International Federation of Robotics
IGES Initial Graphics Exchange Specification
IMO International Maritime Organisation
IPR Intellectual Property Rights
ISIC International Standard Industrial Classification
ISIS Institute for Systems, Informatics and Safety
ISO International Standards Organisation
IT Information Technologies
JRC Joint Research Centre
k .. Kilo: a thousand units of ..
LAN Local Area Network
M .. Mega: a million units of ..

AIPS study Page 2 June 2000

 M.xx Milestone No xx
m.xx Month No xx from the start of the project
MAG Metal Active Gas (welding)
MCAW Metal Core Arc Welding
MIG Metal Inert Gas (welding)
MIF Maritime Industries Forum
MMA Manual Metal Arc (welding)
m-m Man-month
MRP Material Requirements Planning
MS Microsoft
NC Numerical Control
NFS Network File System
NIST National (US) Institute for Standards and Technology
NoE Network of Excellence
NURBS Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines
OCR Optical Character Recognition
OO Object Oriented
PDM Product Data Management
PRODIS Product Development and Innovation in Shipbuilding
QA Quality Assurance
QC Quality Control
R&D Research and Development
RDB Relational Data Base
RIT Remote Inspection and Tele-operation
ROBMAR ROBotics for the MARitime Industry
ROTIS Remotely Operated Tanker Inspection System
ROV Remotely Operated Vehicle
RTD Research & Technological Development
SAW Submerged Arc Welding
SoA State of the Art
SS System Specifications
SW Software
T .. Tera: a trillion units of ..
TF-MSF Task Force “Maritime Systems of the Future”
TPPS Technology of the Production Processes in Shipbuilding
USA United States of America
WAN Wide Area Network
WP Work Package
WWW World Wide Web (Internet)

AIPS study Page 3 June 2000

 Executive Summary
Maritime sector has been and will continue to be of strategic importance for Europe,
due to the nature of its economy, topology, history and tradition [3]. Shipbuilding is a
key maritime industry which has contributed significantly to Europe’s maritime past
and which is strategic for its maritime future. It is also a considerable source of em-
ployment. In the global market economy of today, EU shipbuilding and other related
industries, in order to stay competitive, are faced with an urgent need for profound
changes towards:
• The drastic reduction of the costs and lead times, imposed by the over-capacity in
production and the consequent fierce international competition. This need has be-
come even more urgent from the recent events in the Southeast Asia and from the
upcoming cease of many subsidies to the EU shipbuilding industry.
• The achievement of a sustainable shipbuilding process, part of a sustainable
“quality shipping”.
• The assurance of the highest possible quality standards, necessary for a safe and
environmentally friendly navigation.
The achievement of these goals requires drastic changes in almost every aspect of
the planning, designing, building and maintaining the European commercial fleet.
As what shipbuilding is concerned, the most promising field for the improvement of its
overall efficiency is, according to the maritime industries Master Plan [3], [7], produc-
tion (incl. design) technology. Novel technologies (like laser welding etc), the automa-
tion and robotisation as well as the integration of the design and fabrication processes
can lead to a much increased productivity and transform shipbuilding from labour in-
tensive to a technology intensive sector.
JRC-ISIS has undertaken the study on “the Automation and Integration of Production
Processes in Shipbuilding; State-of-the-art Report” (AIPS), in support to the activities
of the DG “Enterprises”. The key objectives are:
• To identify the technologies in which investments are likely to be more productive
in increasing the competitiveness of the European shipyards.
• To identify the actions and measures that are more appropriate in order to en-
hance the necessary R&D efforts.
• To identify sectors from which shipbuilding can profit in terms of technology trans-
fer and the actions that would help developing the necessary synergies.
Traditionally, shipbuilding has been identified with those operations and processes re-
lated with the transformation of sheet metal to steel hulls. These operations essentially
consisted in marking and cutting the sheet metal prime material in elementary building
pieces the assembly of which, in various stages (panels, sub-blocks, blocks, sections),
finally yielded the complete steel hull. Thus, three basic classes of processes could be
distinguished:
• Sheet (or profile) metal treatment processes
• Fitting and assembling (nowadays mostly by welding)
• Handling (moving and positioning the various blocks and sub-assemblies)
Maximising the efficiency of shipbuilding essentially meant:
• Assuring the most cost-effective acquisition of the necessary prime materials and
components,
• Optimising each one of the processes stated above and
• Planning the whole sequence of operations in such a way so as to ensure a
seamless flow of material and an optimal utilisation of the available resources
Automation in shipbuilding has been applied almost exclusively in steel construction,
in particular in cutting and welding. Nevertheless, especially in what concerns most of
the big European yards, the relative importance of the steel shaping and assembling
has decreased substantially. Shipbuilding nowadays encompasses a range of proc-

AIPS study Page 4 June 2000

 esses and activities much broader than shaping and assembling sheet metal steel.
Activities, such as finishing and outfitting become increasingly important.
In what concerns steelwork, new cutting and welding technologies (i.e. laser welding)
look promising in assuring high quality even when large deck areas are constructed
from thin plates or sandwich panels. Their introduction nevertheless requires radical
re-thinking of the whole steelwork chain.
The role of CAD/CAE has traditionally been that of enhancing the various phases of
the design process and assuring shorter lead times to the planning and the start of the
production activities. Nowadays, in view of the increasing complexity of the production
operations and, consequently, the planning requirements and the stringent lead times
to market, CAD/CAE tools are rapidly acquiring the role of the integrator between the
‘traditional’ design phases the planning and production processes.
The first parts of the steel production, that is marking, cutting, conditioning and as-
sembling the steel plates and profiles into 2D blocks (flat panels), are done today with
very small manning and it is unlikely that any considerable gains are achieved through
further research. On the contrary, the problems in welding of 3D block assemblies are
quite extensive, because the structures are complicated, and the repeatability of the
structures is very low. The production is more one-of-a-kind type than serial or similar.
Although some shipyards have advanced robotized systems, the mechanisation of
welding processes seems more attractive than automation, due the considerably lower
investment costs. The same holds true for the pre-erection and erection phases. The
need for massive investments in novel “intelligent” systems for automating such one-
of-a-kind operations cannot be justified by the meagre gains in terms of overall pro-
ductivity. As the European shipyards tend to build more outfitting intensive ships, more
effort and research in steelwork automation is not likely to be of high priority. Even
where the automation technology exists, it is not necessarily economical considering
the high investment costs.
Steel construction apart, the degree of automation of the other processes is from non-
existent to very limited. The major area for automation in the outfitting is the pipe
workshop. High degree of prefabrication means that major part of pipes is being
manufactured in workshops. Bending of pipes and welding of flanges can be auto-
mated with relatively small effort and this has been already done to some extent.
Good planning and efficient design – production integration is needed in order to
maximise pipe pre-fabrication.
In the other areas of outfitting automation is not an easy task, although the advan-
tages to be derived could be significant. Standardisation and modularisation of ship
systems, integration and good planning rather than automation are regarded as the
ways to increase productivity in outfitting, possibly through subcontracted activities.
The main reason for which the largest part of shipbuilding processes are not yet
automated lies in the very nature of the shipbuilding operations coupled with the fact
that the robotic market has been almost entirely dominated and tailored to the large
volume automotive and commodities industry. In fact:
1. Almost none of the shipbuilding operations are exactly repeatable; at best they are
similar. Many operations are performed only once or at most a very limited num-
ber of times.
2. Many of them, especially the assembly operations, involve very important pay-
loads, in terms of mass, volume and cost. The accessibility can also be quite diffi-
cult.
These two facts mark a clear cut with the robotics and automation technologies as ap-
plied in the large production volume industries like automotive or commodities manu-
facturing.
In such conditions (i.e. one-of-a-kind operations), the most important performance cri-
teria of a manipulating robotic system are the ease of path planning and the opera-
tional flexibility. Autonomy in the execution of certain tasks is a must for ensuring the
above stated characteristics.

AIPS study Page 5 June 2000

 Integration of the right sensorial information in a supervisory control type scheme can
permit the autonomous execution of many low-level tasks with two important conse-
quences:
(a) The human operators of robotic manipulators could be concentrated in high level
activities (such as planning and supervision) instead of performing low level tasks
(such as collision avoidance, precision positioning etc).
(b) “Small” variations in the work-pieces or in the working environment could be dealt
without any need of reprogramming off-line automated or robotised facilities.
The low-level tasks that could be executed autonomously include:
• Obstacle avoidance;
• Adapt to the execution of “similar”, not exactly repetitive operations;
• Corrections for work-piece or workspace “inaccuracies”
Task autonomy cannot be achieved but through novel “intelligent” control schemes in-
tegrating sensorial systems. It implies the use of data fusion, hard real time comput-
ing, autonomous mission execution etc., techniques that are far from being estab-
lished in the environment of manufacturing or engineering industries (see next para-
graph) but are used extensively in some military, deep-sea, space and other "high
tech" applications. Specially in heavy robotics, when manipulating large and heavy
loads, new tracking techniques compensating or bypassing the inevitable mechanical
inaccuracies are required for reliable precision positioning and handling.
An additional factor to consider is that most heavy robotics/handling installations in
shipbuilding and other heavy industries are tailored made, often by the final user him-
self. This prohibits the amortisation of the cost for the introduction of technologies
such as stated above. The already high development cost is further augmented be-
cause of the inherent safety and reliability requirements implying extensive testing and
validation procedures and the big and expensive experimental facilities needed for the
experimental demonstration, testing and validation procedures.
For all these reasons, at short term, the margin for improvements in productivity
through R&D investments the robotisation / automation of the shipbuilding production
processes is very small, especially at individual shipyard level. On the contrary, at long
term, a strategic R&D plan should be formulated permitting the introduction of all the
necessary technologies for the efficient robotisation / automation of the one-of-a-kind
operations in shipbuilding and in other heavy industries.
Prior to construction, every vessel must be designed, the construction operations must
be planned, the automated machines must be programmed and the timely delivery of
prime materials and equipment must be assured. These activities involve the genera-
tion and manipulation of enormous amounts of information. The availability of potent
information and communication tools has increased significantly the amount of infor-
mation to be “managed”. Maintenance of consistent and updated information as well
as a seamless information flow across the shipbuilding activities are vital for the effi-
cient realisation of each shipbuilding project. The extreme diversity, in terms of con-
tents, users, use and forms, of the information necessary for the various design and
production stages make this task quite a difficult one.
A particularity of the shipyards, in relation to other engineering industries, is the fact
the it is quite seldom that the machines, assembly lines or workshops will have to pro-
duce exactly the same work piece. Virtually every vessel constructed, even if from the
same series, differs somewhat from each other.
An additional complication is that even when the nominal geometry of two or more
blocks are the same, due to thermal distortions, actual geometry may vary quite a bit.
Besides the particular assembling or machining problems this might cause, this gives
rise to a problem relative to the gradual deterioration of the model(s) of the vessel as-
semblies or sub-assemblies, relative to the actual situation. One way to deal with the
problem is to perform extensive shrinkage calculations and update the CAD models
with frequent measurements. Nevertheless, this is not always as simple as it might
seem.

AIPS study Page 6 June 2000

 Up till some years ago, the shipyards have been largely self sufficient in all disciplines
of shipbuilding. All the steel work, outfitting work and even the machining work has
been made mainly by the yard’s own personnel. Occasional work subcontracting has
been necessary to even out the peak loads, but this has been minor part and done
normally under shipyard’s supervision.
However, workload distribution among various disciplines can vary significantly in dif-
ferent ship types. The ever-increasing importance and complexity of the outfitting work
requires many specially trained personnel for limited periods of time whose handling
is, for the shipyard, difficult and not cost effective. Hence, most advanced shipyards
have moved to using extensively subcontractors. These are not contracted only on a
time base but also as suppliers capable of turnkey systems deliveries. Examples are
that of the HVAC systems and the prefabricated cabins. Production of the cabins is
happening at the factory, where it can be standardised in close resemblance to a se-
ries production. This gives also possibilities for a certain level of automation.
Standardisation and modularisation of ship systems and subassemblies is seen today
as the key to rationalise production, shift work out of the ship in the workshops, where
it can be performed in a more comfortable and controlled environment.
Today, experts speak about “assembly” yards, where the shipyard has the sole role of
assembling the hull and perform selected parts of the outfitting. This development
makes the integration process much more difficult than it would have been in a case
where everything was done inside the yard. On the other hand, successful completion
of ship project with extensive subcontracting sets new challenges for the standardisa-
tion and integration of the processes.
The operational principle of the assembly yard sets special requirements to the inte-
gration of processes. The design and production is not happening anymore in the lim-
ited area inside the shipyard fences. Instead the work can be done far away from the
yard even in other countries.
The shipyard is de-facto the coordinating body for all these activities. This means effi-
cient flow of vast amount of information in all its forms to all the users, as indicated in
the paragraphs above. Even more important, the distributed and in a variety of differ-
ent formats information must be kept constantly concise and updated.
Most shipyards today are conscious that, at short-medium term, the best way to in-
crease their productivity is trough an efficient production planning and a rationalisation
of all the production and design processes. They are also conscious that these goals
cannot be achieved but through integration, making the maximum out of modern in-
formation and communication tools.
In fact most large shipyards use large common databases; they have PCs and work-
stations connected by LANs and have good Internet connections to many of their sup-
pliers or subcontractors. Their CAD system is connected and can download data to
cutting machines and T-beam stations. Nevertheless, CAD/CAE tools are still being
seen mainly as design tools that, occasionally, provide data to CIM systems, logistics,
planning departments and subcontractors. Instead CAD/CAE tools need to be seen
mainly as the integrating backbone of each shipbuilding project. Although some timid
steps have been taken towards that direction, there is a lot to be done yet.

Conclusions:
The shipping world is relatively conservative in technology thinking; the investments,
be it for ordering a ship or purchasing new production technology, are considerable
and everybody tries to minimise the economical risks. However, the major EU ship-
yards have taken up the challenge imposed by the modern global market economy
and the particular shipbuilding market situation of today. Despite the considerable dif-
ficulties and limitations, they are changing fast.
Very high level of automation as such is not of the highest priority in the development
list of the shipyards. The nature of shipbuilding, which is one-of-a-type production with
few series-production features, makes efficient and cost-effective automation difficult.

AIPS study Page 7 June 2000

 The diminishing portion of steel construction, which is technically the easiest target for
automation, makes investments on further automation even more questionable.
Outfitting work is still at the beginning of the automation process. Here, it is the sub-
contractors that are likely to develop new production technologies. Automation is likely
to be developed for workshop or subcontracted activities.
At short-medium term, the major productivity gains in EU shipbuilding can be achieved
through rationalisation of work phases, good planning and integration rather than
automation. The concepts of product model and process simulation can serve as a
backbone for the integration of new construction strategies (standardised components,
modular outfitting etc), of highly concurrent engineering and production, methods and
of efficient supply chain management tools.
At long term, basic and long-term R&D should be encouraged in order to permit the in-
troduction of all the necessary technologies for the efficient robotisation / automation
of the one-of-a-kind operations in shipbuilding, construction and other heavy “one-of-
a-kind” industries.

AIPS study Page 8 June 2000

 Contents
Glossary......................................................................................................................2
Executive Summary ....................................................................................................4
Contents......................................................................................................................9
1 Introduction........................................................................................................11
1.1 Origins of the AIPS study........................................................................11
1.2 Scope of the AIPS study .........................................................................11
1.3 Implementation method ..........................................................................12
1.4 Report structure ......................................................................................13
2 Terms & definitions ...........................................................................................15
2.1 Robotics ..................................................................................................15
2.2 Automation / mechanisation....................................................................16
2.3 Computer Aided Design, Engineering and Manufacturing......................18
3 Context ..............................................................................................................20
3.1 Towards a competitive & sustainable shipbuilding .................................20
3.2 Robotics & automation ............................................................................23
3.3 Integration tools.......................................................................................26
4 Shipbuilding process break-down .....................................................................30
4.1 Shipbuilding today...................................................................................30
4.2 Production processes..............................................................................31
4.3 Information processes.............................................................................32
5 Automation of the production processes...........................................................35
5.1 Marking, cutting & conditioning of the steel plates and profiles..............35
5.2 Fabrication of 2D blocks .........................................................................37
5.3 Fabrication of 3D blocks in workshop .....................................................38
5.4 Prefabrication of pipes, supports, modules etc.......................................39
5.5 Blasting and painting / coating ................................................................40
5.6 Transport & handling...............................................................................41
5.7 Dimensional control & inspection............................................................43
5.8 Welding processes in shipbuilding..........................................................44
5.9 Laser technologies for cutting and welding.............................................45
5.10 Automating one-of-a-kind processes ......................................................47
5.11 Conclusions ............................................................................................50
6 Design, planning & logistics ..............................................................................51
6.1 General considerations ...........................................................................51
6.2 The importance of ship design................................................................51
6.3 Ship design activities...............................................................................51
6.4 Ship design software tools ......................................................................53
7 Integrating design, production & supply chain ..................................................61
7.1 Integration of basic design with detail design .........................................61
7.2 Integration of detail design with the production activities........................62
7.3 Integration of production planning...........................................................62
7.4 Product model .........................................................................................62
7.5 Process simulation ..................................................................................65
8 New technologies and R&D activities ...............................................................67
8.1 General ...................................................................................................67
8.2 Study on the maritime RTD activities in the member states ...................67
8.3 Recent conferences on shipbuilding IT applications...............................68
8.4 Recent R&D projects relevant to AIPS ...................................................70
8.5 Shipbuilding automation related R&D .....................................................76
8.6 Integration related R&D ..........................................................................76
8.7 The impact of novel production technologies .........................................76

AIPS study Page 9 June 2000

 8.8 Conclusion and recommendations on AIPS related R&D...................... 76
9 Competitiveness of EU shipbuilding................................................................. 78
9.1 Effects of automation.............................................................................. 78
9.2 Effects of integration............................................................................... 78
9.3 Considerations on the competitiveness of the EU shipyards................. 79
10 Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 80
10.1 Challenging environment ....................................................................... 80
10.2 Mechanised rather than completely automated solutions...................... 80
10.3 High priority for integration ..................................................................... 81
10.4 Need for technology transfer and long-term R&D.................................. 81
Acknowledgement.................................................................................................... 82
References............................................................................................................... 83
List of Figures........................................................................................................... 86
Annexes ................................................................................................................... 87
A.1 External subcontractors to the AIPS study....................................................... 88
A.2 Shipyards and other organisations contacted .................................................. 91
A.3 COMPIT 2000 – programme ............................................................................ 93
A.4 The Dutch collaborative experience ................................................................. 97
The Dutch Maritime Cluster.............................................................................. 97
General overview of the Dutch shipbuilding..................................................... 97
Priorities............................................................................................................ 97
Software providers ........................................................................................... 98
A.5 The CESA working group on cooperation........................................................ 99

AIPS study Page 10 June 2000

1 Introduction
1.1 Origins of the AIPS study
Maritime sector has been and will continue to be of strategic importance for Europe,
due to the nature of its economy, topology, history and tradition [3]. Shipbuilding is a
key maritime industry which has contributed significantly to Europe’s maritime past
and which is strategic for its maritime future. It is also a considerable source of em-
ployment.
Nevertheless, in the global market economy of today, EU shipbuilding and other re-
lated industries, in order to stay competitive, are faced with an urgent need for pro-
found changes. The ultimate goals are:
• The drastic reduction of the costs and lead times, imposed by the over-capacity in
production and the consequent fierce international competition. This need has be-
come even more urgent from the recent events in the Southeast Asia and from the
upcoming cease of many subsidies to the EU shipbuilding industry.
• The achievement of a sustainable shipbuilding process, part of a sustainable
“quality shipping”.
• The assurance of the highest possible quality standards, necessary for a safe and
environmentally friendly navigation.
The enlargement of the Union with five new member states, some of which have a
considerable shipbuilding industry, is another factor to be considered.

1.2 Scope of the AIPS study

The purpose of the present state-of-the-art study is:
An overview of the technology of the production processes used in shipbuilding
(TPPS), more in particular related to their automation and their integration, in view of a
competitive and sustainable European shipbuilding industry.
The key objectives of this report are:
• To identify the technologies in which investments are likely to be more productive
in increasing the competitiveness of the European shipyards.
• To identify the actions and measures that are more appropriate in order to en-
hance the necessary R&D efforts.
• To identify sectors from which shipbuilding can profit in terms of Technology
Transfer and the actions that would help developing the necessary synergies.
The study moves along two main lines:
1. State-of-the-art in shipbuilding technology
2. State-of-the-art in related R&D
As requested in the invitation to tender, the report addresses all the activities related
to the construction of the vessel as well as its main components (hull, propulsion etc).
Some indicative topics on which the study focuses are:
• Computer Aided Design and Engineering
• Computer Integrated Manufacturing
• Automation and mechanisation of production
• Integration of the shipbuilding processes
• Heavy robotics & handling
• Novel cutting and welding technologies
• Component and system modularisation
• Influence of novel vessel designs to shipbuilding
• Employment issues
• Environmental issues
• Safety issues

AIPS study Page 11 June 2000

 It encompasses all the EU countries plus some of the new member states and, wher-
ever possible, provides information on US, Japan, Korea and China.

1.3 Implementation method

The methodology with which the AIPS study has been conducted is summarised as
follows:
1. The current shipbuilding methods, techniques and practices were outlined
2. A comprehensive, qualitative breakdown of shipbuilding (including design, plan-
ning, management, etc.) has been performed.
3. Out of the experience of the contributors to this study and consultations with vari-
ous relevant professional bodies a list of organisations and/or persons playing a
major role in at least one of the items (technologies, techniques, activities) above
were identified, covering as completely as possible the above-mentioned break-
down structure.
4. Surveys of the organisations identified above were performed. They included vis-
its on-site and/or interviews with relevant personnel. Although no unified ques-
tionnaires or forms were compiled during or following these visits and/or inter-
views, “survey guidelines” were issued. A list of the shipyards and other organisa-
tions surveyed is given in Annex A.2.
5. Following these surveys as well as other relevant literature and web searches,
each AIPS contributor submitted a report on its pre-defined area of responsibility
(see [2]).
6. Finally, the results of the surveys were synthesised in a concise report (present
document) meeting the objectives of the study.
The surveys have covered the four distinct groups, which have been identified as the
main groups of players in shipbuilding technologies:
1. The ‘demand’ part: organisations performing, supervising or managing shipbuild-
ing operations
2. The ‘supply’ part: industries and companies, suppliers of equipment, services and
technology
3. The ‘regulatory’ part: IMO, classification societies, flag etc.
4. The R&D part: laboratories, universities and other R&D performers working in
fields related to or of strong potential interest to shipbuilding
The approach and the method of survey for each of these target groups has been dis-
tinct, reflecting their particularities.
Events (meetings, workshops etc.) related to shipbuilding or other related sectors
have been exploited as well as the structure and the events of the ROBMAR [6],
CEPS [8], PRODIS [31] and other related networks. In particular, work done in the
frame of the CEPS and PRODIS networks on the state-of-the-art in Engineering and
Production and on Product Development tools has not been duplicated but, where ap-
plicable, it has been included in the present study.
A particular mention should be made to the CESA Working Group on Co-operation
(see Annex A.5), which allowed the participation of F.Andritsos at the meetings and
visits of the group and provided to the AIPS study all the material collected and com-
piled by the group in a “Production Technologies Catalogue”.
As what R&D is concerned, the main source of information was the study by BMT and
other partners on behalf of DG III (now DG ENTERPRISE) on the current EU member
states RTD activities with reference to shipbuilding (including marine equipment, ship-
ping and marine resources), the final report [29] of which was issued in February
2000. An additional source of information has been the direct experience of many of
the AIPS contributors on many relevant R&D projects.
It has been to our intention to co-operate closely with DG ENTERPRISE E.6, having
frequent meetings, answering any particular demands as they are raised and re-
directing the study in real-time, if required.
The implementation of the AIPS study has been divided in four main tasks as follows:

AIPS study Page 12 June 2000

 #1 Detailed work-plan for the study
#2 Outline of the current shipbuilding methods, processes & practices
#3 Outline of the current R&D effort for technologies associated with the automation
and integration of key shipbuilding processes
#4 Synthesis and conclusions
Following the AIPS proposal, the detailed plan for the AIPS study [2] had foreseen the
following activities:
(i) Perform a first, qualitative breakdown of shipbuilding.
(ii) Identify the activities (or clusters of activities) that are of major interest for the
present study.
(iii) Identify those organisations/persons that will give a major contribution to the
survey, possibly through contracts with JRC. Specify the contribution of each
contributor / contractor.
(iv) Formulate the questionnaires for each of the ‘target’ types of the survey.
(v) Perform the surveys
(vi) Analyse the results and synthesise the conclusions in a concise document
Following the initial work done in the frame of task #1, we realised that, during the last
years, there have been a significant numbers of inquiries, surveys and statistics on
shipbuilding. Most of these, either as results or as raw data, have been made avail-
able to AIPS. So, further surveys through questionnaires or forms to be compiled were
judged unnecessary.
It has been decided, rather than just providing yet another compilation of tables and
statistics, to take advantage of the surveys as well as of the existing data, the experi-
ence of the contributors to the AIPS study and the valuable contribution of relevant
thematic networks and associations and try to analyse and answer directly the main
questions at which the AIPS study aims at (as listed in section 1.2 above).
In performing the planning of the study care has been taken so as to cover:
• All regions of interest (i.e. EU regions, new member-states, etc)
• All basic types of technology and equipment relative to shipbuilding (i.e. welding,
cutting, handling, IT, etc)
• All fields of R&D directly related to shipbuilding (i.e. new materials, laser welding,
etc).
• All activities related to shipbuilding operations (i.e. construction, planning, man-
agement etc)
1.4 Report structure
Essentially, the object of the present study can be broken down to:
• The automation of each of the generic shipbuilding processes (including design,
planning etc.);
• The integration, mainly through appropriate CAD/CAE tools of the design, plan-
ning and production processes;
• The R&D relative to the core technologies relative to the automation of each pro-
duction / design process and to their integration.
The present state-of-the-art report is structured as follows:
The section 2 below gives a brief definition of the main terms used in the rest of the
report.
Section 3 deals with the context of the AIPS study. It intends to give an overview of
the main generic arguments (shipbuilding processes, robotics & automation,
CAD/CAM/CIM) of the present study in their context, trace the interrelations and de-
lineate their potential as well as their limitations.
Section 4 deals with the generic shipbuilding process. It presents the shipbuilding
process breakdown structure as well as the information flow diagram. It presents
some typical shipyard layouts and tries to outline the inter-relations of the various
processes and production phases.

AIPS study Page 13 June 2000

 Section 5 deals with the state-of-the-art and/or best practices of each of the production
processes as identified in section 4, in respect to their robotisation / automation. In
particular, it tries to identify the owners and users of these state-of-the-art technolo-
gies or techniques.
Section 6 deals with the state-of-the-art and/or best practices in design, production
planning and logistics.
Section 7 deals with integration of the various production processes through the use of
computerised tools. More in particular it addresses the issue of interfacing and inte-
grating the various CAD/CAE to the CIM and logistic tools as well as the production
practices and procedures.
Section 8 deals with the current status, at European, national and, where possible, at
international level of the R&D activities relative with the core technologies of the pro-
duction and integration processes identified at the sections 5 to 7.
Section 9 analyses the effect of the automation of the production processes and their
integration to the competitiveness of the EU yards vi-a-vis their Far Eastern counter-
parts.
Finally, section 10 attempts to draw some useful conclusions relative with the contrac-
tual aims of the AIPS study (see section 1.2 above). Namely: the identification of the
technologies in which investments are likely to be more productive in increasing the
competitiveness of the European shipyards, the actions and measures that are more
appropriate in order to enhance the necessary R&D efforts and the actions that would
help developing eventual technology transfer.

AIPS study Page 14 June 2000

2 Terms & definitions
Care has been taken so that the terms and definitions used in the current report are in
concordance with internationally accepted standards such as:
• International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC):
Details, as well as an index for all classified economic activities, can be found at
http://www.un.org/Depts/unsdold/class/isicmain.htm. When possible, revision 3
compatible classification is used, otherwise revision 2.
• International Federation of Robotics (IFR)
• International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), http://www.iso.ch/
As the whole section 4 is dedicate to shipbuilding processes, including design and
planning activities, no specific shipbuilding terms will be defined here.

2.1 Robotics
2.1.1 Industrial robots
According to ISO 8373, a Manipulating Industrial Robot is an automatically controlled,
re-programmable, multipurpose manipulator, programmable in 3 or more axes, which
may be either fixed in place or mobile, for use in industrial automation applications.
Industrial Manipulating Robots are classified [10] by:
1. Industrial branches: according to International Standard Industrial Classification
(ISIC), rev.3, some 24 industrial branches are specified. Among them there is no
specific entry for Shipbuilding or Maritime Industry. Shipbuilding robots could be
classified under one of the following categories:
• Manufacture of other metal products, except machinery & equipment (No 28)
or
• Manufacture of other transport equipment
2. Application areas: 24 main areas (IFR classification). Among the, of special inter-
est for the current report are:
• Welding (No 160), further broken down in arc, spot, gas, laser welding (161 to
164) and others (169)
• Special processes (No 190), further broken down in laser and water jet cutting
(191 and 192) and others (199)
• Assembling (No 200), further broken down in mechanical attachment, insert-
ing/mounting/cutting, bonding, soldering, handling for assembly operations
(201 to 205) and others (209)
3. Type of robot: the classification is done by:
(a) Number of axes (3, 4, 5 or more)
(b) Type of control:
• Sequence-controlled / playback point to point: Binary operation (i.e.
start/stop), no programmed control of the trajectory in between
• Trajectory operated / continuous playback: 3 or more controlled axis mo-
tions specifying a time based trajectory
• Adaptive: robots provided with sensory1, adaptive2 or learning3 control
• Tele-operated
• Not classified

1
Motion or force is adjusted according the output of an external sensor
2
Control system parameters are adjusted from conditions detected during the process
3
When experience from previous cycles is used automatically to change the control parame-
ters or algorithms

AIPS study Page 15 June 2000

 (c) Mechanical Structure
• Cartesian & gantry
• SCARA: robot with 2 parallel rotary joints to provide compliance in a plane
• Articulated: robot with at least 3 articulated joints
• Parallel: robot with concurrent prismatic or rotary joints
• Spherical & cylindrical
The definition of the industrial robots, such as presented above, does not include the
concept of autonomous performance of even low-level tasks or operations. This con-
cept is fundamental for the robotisation of critical, one-of-a-kind operations such as the
ones found in typical shipbuilding environments. IFR envisages autonomy only for the
recently introduced category of service robots.
2.1.2 Service robots
There is no strict, internationally accepted definition for service robots, specially in
what distinguishes them from manipulating industrial robots and other type of equip-
ment. According to a preliminary definition by IFR, service robot is a robot which oper-
ates semi or fully autonomously to perform services useful to the well being of humans
and equipment, excluding manufacturing operations. Often, but not always, service
robots are mobile.
According to the above definition, some manipulating industrial robots, when operating
in non-manufacturing environments, could be classified as “service robots”. Several
robots, operating in a manufacturing environment but in non-repetitive operations and
possessing some degree of autonomy, cannot be classified either as manipulating in-
dustrial robots or as service robots.

2.2 Automation / mechanisation

According the Webster dictionary “automation” is a coined word having no precise,
generally accepted technical meaning but widely used to imply the concept, develop-
ment or use of highly automatic machinery or control systems. Automation is generally
accepted as the technology concerned with the application of complex mechanical,
electronic or computer based systems in the operation and control of production /
manufacturing. It includes:
• Automatic machine tools for processing work-parts;
• Automatic materials handling systems;
• Automatic assembly machines;
• Continuous-flow processes;
• Feedback control systems;
• Computer process control systems and
• Computerised systems for data collection, planning and decision making to sup-
port manufacturing activities
In what concern the metalworking industries and the shipyards in particular, auto-
mated production systems can be classified in three basic types:
• Fixed automation: fixed sequence of processing operations (i.e. transfer lines)
• Programmable automation: programmable sequence of processing operations
(i.e. NC machine tool)
• Intelligent automation: Some degree of autonomy / self-adaptability
The Mac-Graw Hill Encyclopaedia quoted the Harvard Business Review proposal of
17 levels of mechanisation according the power and control sources, as shown on
Table 1 below.

AIPS study Page 16 June 2000

 Table 1: Levels of mechanisation, Harvard Business Review,
source: Mac-Graw Hill Encyclopaedia

INITIATING

RESPONS
CONTROL

MACHINE
SOURCE

SOURCE
TYPE OF

POWER
LEVEL OF MECHANIZATION

LEVEL
E
Modifies own 17 Anticipated action required and adjusts
action over a to provide it
wide range of
From a variable in the environment

Responds with action

16 Corrects performance while operating

variation
15 Corrects performance after operating
Selects from a 14 Identifies and selects appropriate set
limited range of of actions
possible pre-
13 Segregates or research to according
MECHANICAL (Non manual)
fixed actions
measurement
12 Changes speed, position, according to
measurement signal
11 Records performance
Responds with signal 10 Signals pre-selected values
9 Measures characteristic of work
8 Actuated by introduction of work piece
From a control

or material
mechanism

Fixed within the ma- 7 Power tool system remotely controlled

chine
6 Power tool program control
5 Power tool fixed cycle
4 Power tool, hand control
From man

3 Powered hand tool

Variable
2 Hand tool
MAN
UAL

1 Hand

Self-correcting actions are on levels 12 to 17 while the “automatic” operations are

found on the levels 5 to 8. A scale of mechanization-automation specific to shipbuild-
ing, similar to the one proposed by the Harvard Business Review (Table 1 above),
does not exist as yet. Such a generally agreed scale would be desirable for monitoring
and benchmarking purposes.
Automation of a shipbuilding sub-process or operation can imply:
• Connection to a ERP programming tool
• Input material selection & flow
• Material positioning and clamping
• Interfacing CAD data to off-line programming
• Off-line programming of the trajectory and sequence
• Connection to a data-base of welding, cutting etc procedures
• Off-line programming of the parameters (gas rates, velocity, current)
• Start and stop parameter and ramp automatic start and stop adjustment
• Sensors to monitor excursions from predefined limits (shrinkage, weld gap aper-
ture)
• Programming for self-adjustment to variations detected

AIPS study Page 17 June 2000

 • On line quality control (record of parameters, warning or inspection systems,
marking)
• Tool exchange and cleaning automated systems
• Cleaning and finishing as needed
• Material output
• Material output classification and routing
By the term “mechanisation” we refer to the assistance, which is provide to the opera-
tor, usually by servo-mechanical means, in order to alleviate him in the most tedious
parts of his job. Sometimes, this assistance can involve quite complicated and expen-
sive equipment as in the case of robot-assisted operations. The fundamental differ-
ence of mechanisation as compared to robotisation or automation lies in the fact that,
although some auxiliary operations might be automated or robotised, the operation as
such is performed manually.
Typical examples of mechanisation are:
• Automatic feed of the electrode during a welding operation
• Servo-assisted handling of the tubes, wires or the entire welding machine through
gantries, hanging pantographic mechanisms etc.
Often, the terms “semi-automated” and “mechanised” are used indiscriminately. In
fact, there exist many overlaps in what in the use of terms like automation, mechanisa-
tion, semi-automation, robotisation, robot-assisted operations etc.

2.3 Computer Aided Design, Engineering and Manufacturing

CAD (Computer-Aided Design) refers to the use of computer and digital technology to
support the preparation of engineering designs, typically limited to geometry only.
CAD / CAM (Computer-Aided Design / Computer-Aided Manufacturing) refers to the
integrated use of computer and digital technology to support the entire design-to-
fabrication cycle of a product.
CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering) refers to the use of computer and digital technol-
ogy to support basic error checking, analysis, optimisation, manufacturability, etc., of a
product design. Finite element analysis (FEA) is one example of CAE.
CE (Concurrent Engineering) refers to a systematic approach to creating a product
design that considers all elements of the product life cycle from the conceptual design
to the disposal of a product, and in so doing defines the product, its manufacturing
processes, and all other required life cycle processes such as logistic support. Con-
current engineering means shortening the engineering process cycle introducing par-
allel engineering processes instead of sequential processes.
CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing) refers to the use of computer and digital
technology to completely integrate all manufacturing process with engineering design.
Communication Protocol refers to a defined communication format that contains the
control procedures required for the data transfer across the link interfaces, and to and
from the user's application programs. A set of rules that specify how data communica-
tion is to take place over a network. governing the format, timing, sequencing and er-
ror control of exchanged data.
EPD (Electronic Product Definition) refers to the concurrent creation, management,
sharing, and reusing of electronic product information in a collaborative environment
throughout a product's life cycle and across a distributed value chain.
EDM (Electronic Document Management) refers to a combination of automated and
operator-invoked processes that allow the capturing, storage, retrieval, display, routing
and maintenance of information comprising electronically stored documents.
Extended Enterprise: The seamless integration of a group of companies and suppli-
ers.

AIPS study Page 18 June 2000

 IGES (Initial Graphics Exchange Specification) is an American standard for exchang-
ing CAD data, started by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) back to
1979. The Current version is IGES 5.3. The next version will be IGES 6.0.
Parametric Modelling refers to a type of CAD model that relates the geometry of dif-
ferent elements of a product so that when one element is changed, the geometry of
the rest of the product changes as well.
PDM (Product Data Management) refers to the management of all engineering manu-
facturing data for a product to control its entire development cycle.
Product Data refer to all engineering data necessary to define the geometry, the func-
tion, and the behaviour of an item over its entire life span, including logistic elements
for quality, reliability, maintainability, topology, relationship, tolerances, attributes, and
features necessary to define the item completely for the purpose of design, analysis,
manufacture, test, and inspection.
Product Model is a data model that contains the functions and physical characteris-
tics of each unit of a product throughout its complete life cycle (from requirements
specification to disposal).
STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data - ISO standard 10303) is the
international data description standard which will provide a complete unambiguous,
computer-interpretable definition of the physical and functional characteristics of a
product throughout its life cycle.
Virtual Prototyping is a software-based engineering discipline that entails modelling
a mechanical system, simulating and visualizing its 3D motion behaviour under near
real-world operating conditions, and refining / optimising the design through iterative
design studies.
VR (Virtual Reality) refers to a class of systems (hardware and software) made to
build a high-end representation of reality.

AIPS study Page 19 June 2000

3 Context
3.1 Towards a competitive & sustainable shipbuilding
3.1.1 The changing yard
The shipbuilding market is characterised by an over-capacity in production, mainly in
the sector of merchant vessels, which has caused dramatic price reductions (from
15% to 30% over the 1998 prices) in particular for the steel intensive vessel types
which are fabricated in Korea (tankers, bulk-carriers, VLCCs, etc.). The actual ship-
building capacity is around 21 Mgct while the newbuildings in 1999 accounted for 16.4
Mcgt. This unbalance is bound to worsen during the next few years, [30].
The principal reason for the unbalance between shipbuilding offer and demand has
been the substantial increase of the Korean shipbuilding capacity, mainly during the
period 1994-1996. As a result of the Korean expansion, all the major shipbuilding ar-
eas (Japan in particular) accused significant losses. In EU the situation of the ship-
building sector is critical as the increased demand for luxury cruise vessels and the
weak Euro cannot but just compensate for the losses towards Korea.
The situation of the shipbuilding market has accelerated the trend of EU shipyards to-
wards building vessel types with high technical content and specialised know-how.
Typical examples are the containerships, LNG, LPG and product tankers, dredgers,
luxury cruise vessels and ferries.
Apart from the shift towards more complex types of vessels, we must note the increas-
ing complexity of every vessel type because of:
• Increased performance requirements in every operational field: speed, safety,
emissions, manning, comfort, cargo & passenger handling etc.
• More stringent environmental and safety regulations
• Better design and building tools that allow better products even in conditions of
lower profit margin
Moving to more complicated ship types sets a totally different level of requirements for
the shipyard and surrounding infrastructure. The focus is shifted from the pure steel
construction towards extensive outfitting work. As the complexity of a vessel increases
the portion of the steel work diminishes significantly. In a modern passenger cruise
vessel the outfitting work can represent, in terms of cost, up to 80% of the total work
the steel work being only 20%. Material costs become also a dominant factor in ship
pricing.
Another important change concerns the design activities (including planning and man-
agement), which become increasingly important both in terms of volume and cost as
well overall impact to the shipbuilding project. For a modern passenger vessel, can
easily represent over 10% of the total project cost [44].
The very short delivery times, imposed by the fierce competition and the rapidly evolv-
ing market, emphasise even more the need for efficient design, planning and man-
agement. Indeed, in many cases, the time from contract to delivery of even a very
complicated vessel, such as a cruise liner, can be shorter than 30 months.
In the past, shipyards have been largely self sufficient in all disciplines of shipbuilding
process. All the steel work, outfitting work and even the machining work has been
made mainly by the shipyard’s own personnel. Occasional work subcontracting has
been necessary to even out the peak loads, but this has been minor part and done
normally under shipyard’s supervision.
However, workloads can vary significantly across various disciplines in different ship
types. Also the complexity of certain outfitting work requires a lot of highly skilled per-
sonnel for limited periods of time. From the shipyard’s point of view handling this is dif-
ficult and not cost effective. Due to this reason most of the advanced shipyards have

AIPS study Page 20 June 2000

 moved towards the extensive use of subcontractors. These are more and more re-
quested to provide systems and turnkey deliveries.
Today the experts speak about “assembly” yards, where the shipyard may assume the
sole role of assembling the hull and selected parts of the outfitting while a significant
part of the added value is produced by external personnel. This development makes
the automation and integration process much more difficult than it would be in a case
where everything is done at the yard.
Nowadays, successful completion of complicated ship (such as modern high-speed
ferries or big passenger vessels) in a concurrent engineering and production environ-
ment sets new challenges for the standardisation of components and integration of the
production processes.
3.1.2 The changing ship
There has been tremendous development in most kinds of ships since the early eight-
ies. The size of ships has progressively increased as well as speed. Increased safety
together with higher capacity and efficiency requirements have led to application of
new design configurations and technology, at a rate never seen before in the ship-
building world.
In terms of hull forms, the tendency has been towards higher capacity, which has
meant bulkier ships, above and under waterline, towards higher block coefficient. At
the same time also the main dimension ratios have changed remarkably, the length-
beam ratio has decreased, in some cases even below 5 and the beam-draught ratio
has increased: for example for ro-ro passenger ferries from 3,0-3,5 up to 4,5-5,0.
Up to the end of the 70’s the hull forms were typically defined by using hull form se-
ries, such as Series 60, Taylor, BSRA and similar. Today these series are no more
used and, typically, hull form designs are based on reference vessel(s) or are defined
and faired using CAD programs.
Cruise vessels have also developed rapidly during the last twenty years. The increase
in vessel size is impressive. 85,000 gt has for a long time been the upper limit of
cruise vessel size. The first mega size cruise vessel was the 101,353 gt Carnival Des-
tiny delivered in 1996. The total number of such mega cruise vessels, built or on order
by the end of 1999, was 9.
Another clear tendency has been towards higher speeds especially in ferries, contain-
erships and high value cargoes. Average contract speed for ships above 1000 gt has
increased by about one knot within the last 15 years. For some special ship types,
such as container feeder ships, ro-ro ships and ferries the increase has been several
knots.
Ro-ro’s and ro-ro passenger ferries have today two clearly different families:
• Conventional high displacement ferries with Froude number around 0,30 or below
and
• High displacement fast ferries with Froude number clearly above 0,35, reaching
today already 0,40 or even above
Catamaran designs and pods and water jet propulsion allow innovative designs waiv-
ing the constraints of the monohull-propeller limitations.
Increased competition, however, will always put the focus on the cost effectiveness of
any investment. Any drastic innovation in the vessel design, structures or materials
has inherent risks on long time performance (fatigue, corrosion, vibrations. etc). Effi-
cient lifecycle analysis is required for the cost-analysis of any new configuration or so-
lution.
The issue is to maximise the efficient revenue generating space at minimised invest-
ment and running costs, taking into account system availability and environmental im-
pacts. These items have to be clarified and their impact on the lifecycle economy of
the vessel has to be calculated before any major decision can be made.

AIPS study Page 21 June 2000

 New products and innovations are introduced and completely new machinery and ship
configurations are developed for efficiency and economical reasons.
Considering cost efficiency we end up with four items:
1. Space,
2. Weight,
3. Power
4. Equipment (materials)
The efficient area and volume of the vessel compared with the total area and volume
is a good indication of revenue generating capability and costs. Weight is directly re-
lated to building and fuel costs. Installed power onboard relates to the efficiency of
hull, propulsion system and power generation. Equipment and materials are cost re-
lated either directly or indirectly (through required man-hours).
3.1.3 Shipbuilding, fundamental sector of a sustainable EU shipping
The maritime sector has been and will continue to be of strategic importance for
Europe, due to the nature of its economy, topology, history and tradition [3]. Shipping
in particular has played a major role in almost every aspect of the European life and is,
to a great extent, responsible for its present welfare. The EEA (European Economic
Area) ship owners controlled a fleet, which, in January 1998, represented 190.6 M gt,
corresponding to 38.5% of the world fleet.
The shipbuilding industry in Europe (EU plus Poland and Norway) is in third place, be-
hind Japan and Korea, in terms of tonnage built and equalled Japan in first place as
far as order book is concerned (1998 data). Europe’s shipbuilding is world leading in
complex, high-tech ship constructions, particularly passenger ships (cruisers and fer-
ries), containerships, LNG and LPG tankers, etc. European equipment manufacturers
represent over 2,500 SMEs. During 1997, shipbuilding and related suppliers employed
a work force of about 200,000 persons, delivering merchant ships and equipment with
a value of around 17 G€.
Over the past couple of decades, European shipbuilding has declined dramatically in
terms of orders and closures of yards resulting in an important loss of skilled workers;
in 1976, shipbuilding an related industries employed some 500,000 workers. Euro-
pean shipbuilding, as we know it, cannot survive such losses in its skill base.
Shipbuilding is a key maritime industry, which not only has contributed significantly to
Europe’s maritime past but also is strategic for its future. In the global market econ-
omy of today, in order to stay competitive, shipbuilding industries are faced with an ur-
gent need for profound changes. This need has become even more urgent from the
recent events in the Southeast Asia and from the upcoming cease of many subsidies.
The enlargement of the Union with five new member states, some of which have a
considerable shipbuilding industry, is another factor to be considered. In the long run,
European shipbuilding cannot assure its future but by:
• The achievement of a competitive and sustainable shipbuilding, integral part of a
sustainable shipping industry.
• The assurance of the highest possible quality standards, necessary for a safe and
environmentally friendly navigation.
The achievement of these goals requires drastic changes in almost every aspect of
the planning, designing, building and maintaining the European commercial fleet. Im-
provements are to be sought in every stage of the fabrication process, from the con-
ceptual design to the procurement, production, outsourcing management, assembly,
fitting, QA etc. Novel technologies (like laser welding etc), the automation and roboti-
sation as well as the integration of the design and fabrication processes can lead to a
much increased productivity and have the potential to transform shipbuilding from a
labour intensive to a technology intensive sector.
A technology intensive, sustainable European shipbuilding sector is a fundamental, in-
tegrating part of a sustainable European shipping, which is, and will continue to be, of
strategic importance for the future of Europe.

AIPS study Page 22 June 2000

3.2 Robotics & automation
3.2.1 The world market for industrial robots
In 1997, worldwide robot installations reached the record level of 85,000 units, exactly
half of which concern installations in Japan, as can be seen on Table 2 below. This
represents an increase of +6.5% over the 1996 figure. Nevertheless, the value of
these installations amounts to $4.8 billion, which represents a reduction of –4% over
the 1996 value. The total stock of operational industrial robots was estimated in 1997
at 711,000 units, distributed as shown in Table 3 below, at +6% over the stock of the
previous year.

Table 2: Yearly installations of robots for 1996 and 1997; forecasts for 1998 -2001,
from [10]
Country 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Japan 38914 42696 47200 50700 55800 61400
USA 9700 12459 11000 12750 14700 16900
Germany 10425 9017 9500 10000 11000 12000
Italy 3331 3692 3900 4100 4400 4700
France 1697 1721 1800 1950 2100 2400
UK 1116 1792 1600 1600 1800 1900
Big 6 above 65183 71377 75000 81100 89800 99300
4
West Europe - 8 3317 3788 4200 4600 5100 5600
5
East Europe – 5 173 184 200 200 200 200
S.E. Asia – 46 8624 7038 6700 7000 8100 9300

Table 3: World robot market and total stock of operational industrial robots in 1997,
from [10]
Country Japan USA Germany Korea Italy + France + UK

Market (billion$) 2.2 1.1 0.56 0.143 0.44

Stock (%) 58% 11% 9%

One important consideration, also reflected in the tables above, is that the unit value
of robots is falling continuously: in the period 1990 -> 1997 it fell by 21% in the US,
25% in Germany, 5% in Italy and 45% in France. The average unit price on 1997 was
$88,000 at the US and between $50,000 and $65,000 in Europe.
3.2.2 Robots by industrial branch
7
Engineering industries account for 65% to 85% of all robots worldwide. The motor
vehicle industry is the predominant user of robots (except in Japan) while the pre-
dominant application area is that of welding. Table 4 below gives an overview of the
distribution of operational robots per industrial branch in 4 typical industrialised coun-
tries. Complete data can be found in [10], where the statistical data presented here
have been taken from.

4
Austria, Benelux, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland
5
Czech rep., Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia
6
Australia, Korea Singapore and Taiwan
7
Industrial branches included in ISIC rev.2, Division 38

AIPS study Page 23 June 2000

 Table 4: Operational robot stock, added value and robot density per industrial
branch in USA, Japan, Germany and Italy for 1996, from [10]

Machine Indus-
Process Indus-

Metal Products

Motor Vehicles
Electrical Ma-
Total Industry

Engineering

Instruments
Equipment
Transport

Industry
chinery
tries
Branch

try
ISIC rev.2 num. 3 3-38 38 381 382 383 384 3843 385
Stock (k units) 71 35
Value added (G$) 1332 753 579 98 150 144 134 85 52
Empl. (million) 19 11 7.8 1.4 2.1 1.7 1.8 0.96 0.85
USA

Robot density 38 369

(units / 10k empl.)
Stock (k units) 400 91 308 20 48 129 106 95 5
Value added (T 121 66 56 7 15 20 12 10 1.8
yen)
Empl. (million) 15 8.1 6.8 1.2 1.8 2.4 1.2 1.1 0.21
Japan

Robot density 268 112 453 165 271 550 850 909 235
(units / 10k empl.)
Stock (k units) 60 18 42 5 3.6 3.8 29 28 0.7
Value added (G 789 416 373 76 80 88 90 87 20
DM)
Germany

Empl. (million) 7.6 3.8 3.8 0.86 0.99 0.96 0.83 0.85 0.28
Robot density 79 48 111 58 36 40 336 343 25
(units / 10k empl.)
Stock (k units) 23 3.5 19 4.5 3.1 2.2 9.7 6.8 0.06
Value added (T 378 247 131 30 32 24 21 11 6.8
Lit)
Empl. (million) 4.6 3 1.6 0.47 0.4 0.3 0.29 0.17 0.09
Italy

Robot density 51 12 123 95 77 72 329 402 7

(units / 10k empl.)

From the table above, 2 good indicators on the relative use of robots in each industrial
branch can be derived by dividing the robot stock % share of each industrial branch to
its:
• % share in the added value to give the robot / value added relative share
• % share in employment to give the robot / employment relative share.
The higher those ratios are the more is intensive the use of robots in the industrial
branch in question. These two ratios are given per industrial branch and for some se-
lected countries in Table 5 and Table 6 below.

AIPS study Page 24 June 2000

 Table 5: Robot / value added share per industrial branch for selected industrial
countries, from [10]

Motor Vehicles
Total Industry

Electrical Ma-
Engineering

Machine In-

Instruments
Metal Prod-
Process In-

Equipment
Transport
Industrial

Industry
dustries

chinery
Branch

dustry
ucts
ISIC rev.2 3 3-38 38 381 382 383 384 3843 385
USA 1 7.8

Japan 1 0.4 1.7 0.9 1 2 2.6 2.8 0.9

Germany 1 0.6 1.5 0.9 0.6 0.6 4.2 4.2 0.5

France 1 0.5 1.8 0.2 1.6 0.5 4.7 6.8

UK 1 0.5 1.8 1.4 0.4 0.6 4.8 9.3 0

Italy 1 0.2 2.4 2.1 1.4 1.3 6.6 8.8 0.1

Sweden 1 0.3 1.8 2.3 0.9 0.9 3.6 4.5 0

Table 6: Robot / employment share per industrial branch for selected industrial
countries, from [10]

Motor Vehicles
Total Industry

Electrical Ma-
Engineering

Machine In-

Instruments
Metal Prod-
Process In-

Equipment
Transport
Industrial

Industry
dustries

chinery
Branch

dustry
ucts

ISIC rev.2 3 3-38 38 381 382 383 384 3843 385

USA 1 9.7

Japan 1 0.4 1.7 0.6 1 2.1 3.2 3.4 0.9

Germany 1 0.6 1.4 0.8 0.5 0.5 4.5 5.1 0.3

France 1 0.5 1.7 0.2 1.2 0.5 4.3 6

UK 1 0.6 1.5 0.9 0.3 0.5 4.4 8.3 0

Italy 1 0.2 2.4 1.9 1.5 1.4 6.6 8.1 0.1

Sweden 1 0.3 1.7 2 1 0.7 3.5 4.8 0

Unfortunately, shipbuilding is not a distinct category in the ISIC rev.2 or rev.3 classifi-
cation. Subtracting the “Motor Vehicles” numbers in Table 4 from the “Transport
Equipment” ones could derive an indication on the use of robots on the use of robots
in the shipbuilding, train and aeronautic branches together. The Robot / added value
and robot / employment relative shares for the transport industries excluding the motor
vehicle industries are presented in the Table 7 below8.

Table 7: Robot / added value and robot / employment relative shares for the trans-
port industries excluding the motor vehicle ones
Country robot / value added share robot / employment share
Japan 1.7 4.1
Germany 4.4 6.3
Italy 4.8 4.8

8
It must be pointed out that these numbers are only approximate since they have been de-
rived operating on the numbers reported in Table 4, that is with only 2 significant digits

AIPS study Page 25 June 2000

3.3 Integration tools
The “IT revolution” to which we have assisted during the last decade, has been essen-
tially geared by the rapid progress in two important, complementary fields:
• The micro-technologies necessary for the miniaturisation of electronic and other
hardware components, necessary for the realisation of the modern digital com-
puter and telecommunication systems and
• The development and deployment of the open tools and object oriented program-
ming techniques necessary for the development of the complex software environ-
ment of the modern distributed but highly integrated systems.
Especially during the last decade, digital computer technology penetrated almost
every single aspect of industrial activity. It alleviated humans from many tedious re-
petitive jobs and provided the backbone for efficient and cost effective performance of
operations as diverse as document production to car assembling or high precision
component manufacturing.
3.3.1 Computers: from calculations to communications and integration
There is no need to illustrate to anyone the rapid advances of the computer industry
during the last years. In many respects, the hardware potential available in a modern
laptop compute is superior to any medium-size computer of 10 years ago. In the re-
cent years, the improvement of the average cost / performance ratio has been halved
every one and half years. The considerable performance gains obtained in the PC
based platforms and the consequent move of many engineering applications towards
Windows NT has further improved that figure.
Nevertheless, the most drastic change perhaps lies in the way computer systems are
perceived and used:
10 years ago a computer would typically be perceived as a tool for increasing the pro-
ductivity of a certain process, be it design (i.e. CAD/CAE systems) or production (ro-
bots or automation systems), mainly through its ability to perform fast calculations.
10 years from now, a computer is likely to be perceived as an integration tool, compo-
nent of a broad digital communication system rather like a process productivity en-
hancing tool.
Today, in what regards the use of computers, EU enterprises are still in the very be-
ginning of a transformation process. The levers of this transformation are:
• The vast amount of technical and commercial information which are available al-
most in real-time through Internet.
• The new digital communication technologies (LANs, WANs, ISDSN, etc.), which
make technically possible concurrent engineering, virtual enterprises, and other
collaborative forms of working, using cheap, public communication channels.
Important issues to be addressed are of commercial and regulatory aspect rather than
technical. They mainly concern communication standards and data security.
3.3.2 Software development & programming techniques
Object Oriented Programming
Object Oriented Programming is the recent answer to the complexity of the software
engineering processes. Although the concept of Object is not that new it was the late
evolution of languages like C++ and Java that gave to this technique the required tools
to apply it.
The concept of Object is based on the idea that this software unit comprises from the
data and the routines that are used to process them. This way the degree of access to
the data and the permission to alter them is controlled. This is referred as the encap-
sulation property. Objects represent usually existing physical entities (sensor, mecha-
nism) but also processes or message passing units. Objects can have certain rela-
tions among them the most important is inheritance. An object can be described to be-
long to a certain class of objects inheriting a structure and behaviour from the original

AIPS study Page 26 June 2000

 class. According to this relation a feature of one object can be inherited to others once
those are declared to belong to this group of objects. Other relations among objects
can be constructed allowing different levels of interaction. Objects can belong to a
number of different groups inheriting thus the characteristics (coherently) of all these
groups. This property is referred as polymorphism.
Another basic advantage of the OOP is the possibility to recycle software code. Parts
of the same software code in the form of objects can be used in different projects ex-
ploiting similarities in the representation of an object. This is possible since each ob-
ject can have the same interface and structure that characterises its behaviour in dif-
ferent software packages.
UML
Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a semi-formal semantic meta-language used
mainly in OOP, to define the basic modelling concepts of object, class, association,
etc. It includes formal well-formedness rules expressed as constraints in the Object
Constraint Language (OCL). In addition it provides graphical notation for modelling
concepts with 8 different diagram types and 2 predefined domain extensions.
UML combined existing standards developed separately by researchers into a unique
by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 1997. In this way UML evolved into a
standard tool for analysis and design of object-oriented systems based on extensive
experience and best practices. Currently is gaining rapid acceptance (training, tools,
books) as a common language in software industry.
UML can be used in many different areas to capture domain-specific concepts and
ideas, reflecting the main characteristics of OOP that is :
• encapsulation
• inheritance
• polymorphism / genericity
In addition it offers the means for the description of a system as set of structurally col-
laborating parts classes and instances.
UML offers the possibility to describe a number of different design views for a system
with corresponding types of diagrams, namely:
• Requirements (use case diagrams)
• Static structure (class diagrams): types of objects and their relationships
• Dynamic behaviour (state machines): possible life histories of an object
• Interactive behaviour (activity, sequence, and collaboration diagrams): flow of con-
trol among objects to achieve system-level behaviour
• Physical implementation structures (component and deployment diagrams): soft-
ware modules and deployment on physical nodes.
A number of visual tools based on UML have been developed automatically translat-
ing the graphical structures into software frames. The author has then to fill up the
created frame with the detailed code. This allows a more effective software construc-
tion since the generated structures reflect design choices not to be overwritten in later
stages of development.
3.3.3 CAD / CAE
A model is a representation of an object or a physical system. Models can be symbolic
(i.e. a set of mathematical or logical equations), iconic (i.e. a map), logical (.e. flow
chart) or geometric. Designers, engineers or analysts create and use models to define
somehow the process the physical realisation of any part, assembly or construction. In
addition, models are used extensively to simulate, test or predict the behaviour of ob-
jects or physical systems.
Computerised systems, mainly due to their interactive graphic capabilities, have be-
come valuable tools for creating and manipulating geometric and other types of mod-
els. Thus, they have contributed in enhancing significantly most of the design phases,
leading at much better engineered products much faster. Modern CAD packages also

AIPS study Page 27 June 2000

 provide interfaces towards CAM systems, thus contributing in the off-line programming
of the automated production facilities.
A very important change happening these days concerns in the role that CAD tools
play in modern industry: The role of CAD/CAE has traditionally been that of enhancing
the various phases of the design process and assuring shorter lead times to the plan-
ning and the start of the production activities. Nowadays, in view of the increasing
complexity of the production operations and, consequently, the planning requirements
and the stringent lead times to market, CAD/CAE tools are rapidly acquiring the role of
the integrator between the ‘traditional’ design phases the planning and production
processes.
The design, manufacture and support of a product involve an increasing number of
partners each one of them requiring different, specialised data and information related
to the development of the given product. All of them need to be able to operate effi-
ciently and for that it is vital the ability to share and exchange Product Data in a timely
manner is critical. Geometry, which has traditionally been the object of CAD/CAM, is
only part of the information necessary for the realisation of a product, especially when
a product life-cycle approach is considered. Recently, the potential of the IT tools,
combined with the new SW development environment, promises to make possible the
realisation of a Product Model providing a representation of all information associated
with the complete product lifecycle including design, manufacture, utilisation, mainte-
nance, and disposal along with the necessary mechanisms and definitions to enable
data to be exchanged among different computer systems and environments (see
STEP).
In general, the capabilities of the CAD / CAE packages kept pace with the rapidly
evolving IT potential with two important trends:
• The move, even for demanding CFD applications, from mainframe platforms to
workstations and / or PCs.
• The move from proprietary operating systems towards standard UNIX and, mainly,
Windows NT environment.
In what concerns the CAD market, on top of the above trends, we see an important
shift of the big software vendors towards new architectures, moving from 2D based
drafting to complete 3D and Product Model representations. Some important CAD
packages are currently being completely re-written at costs of several thousands of
man-years of development work.
The globalisation of the market economy combined with the IT context, as described
in the paragraphs above, has created two apparently conflicting trends in the market
of the CAD / CAM / CAE products:
• Further concentration of the big CAD / CAE vendors
• Creation and development of many small, home/custom made, highly specialised
products
Although there have been significant activities to define standards on CAD data ex-
change, the interfacing of the various existing CAD programs remains a major bottle-
neck. Even if the big software houses usually provide ad-hoc translators towards each
other’s packages, passing data among applications is usually a matter of concern. The
situation is much worse in smaller packages.
Nevertheless, this situation is bound to change. The great enabler in the uptake of
new standards is the web. With the prevalence of the Internet within the working envi-
ronment we have the means to move and view data from anywhere to anywhere in the
world. With companies like Microsoft, who have recently made a strategic decision to
enter the engineering applications market, applying constant pressure to conform, we
stand on the brink of a new generation of systems with new architectures built on the
concept of integrated platforms.
In shipbuilding, CAD tools are used in every stage of the design process and, partly, in
the early production processes. A good overview of the use of the CAD / CAE tools in
shipbuilding is found in [25].

AIPS study Page 28 June 2000

3.3.4 Standards
Models, even when representing the same physical object or system can be extremely
different from each other depending primarily on the use or the requirements they are
supposed to meet but also on the way they were conceived. This is even more so for
the computerised models that depend upon also upon the HW and SW platform on
which they are visualised, on the particular modelling (CAD/CAE) program used or
even on the programming habits of the CAD designer / operator. Flawless information
exchange across different models / applications has always been a major issue.
In the past decades, models used in engineering / industrial applications were mostly
CAD, CAM or CAE models, that is mostly graphical representations of some physical
object or system. Consequently, the major issue has been that of exchanging / sharing
of graphical / geometric information among the various applications. The IGES (Initial
Graphics Exchange Specification) standard for exchanging CAD data, started ANSI
back in 1979, was the most important response to tackle this issue. Nevertheless, the
interfacing of the various existing CAD programs and the flawless exchange of geo-
metric information still remains an important issue. In fact, the problem is so compli-
cated, the requirements (and consequently the methods and techniques used over the
time) are so diverse that even the market forces have been unable to impose a de-
facto standard (like Microsoft in the office automation applications).
Inevitably, the situation is bound to be much more complicated in what concerns the
standards on product models, where information is not only geometric but is supposed
to describe all aspects of the product throughout its life-cycle.
STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product model data - ISO standard 10303) is an
international set of standards, still under development, which will be used to describe
a product in a neutral format over its complete life-cycle in a hardware-independent
way. Several STEP application protocols, specifically oriented to ship design, produc-
tion and operation, are in preparation. EMSA is the European Maritime STEP Associa-
tion. In USA the MariStep organisation is quite active, driven by the military industry
and IBM and a ProStep organisation. Japan has also a Step Association.
This series of ISO 10303 International Standards provides a representation of product
information along with the necessary mechanisms and definitions to enable product
data to be exchanged. The exchange is among different computer systems and envi-
ronments associated with the complete product life-cycle, including product design,
manufacture, use, maintenance, and final disposition of the product.
The following are within the scope of ISO 10303:
1. The representation of product information, including components and assemblies;
2. The exchange of product data, including storing, transferring, accessing, and ar-
chiving.
Thus, STEP supports not only the exchange of product data, but also its representa-
tion for e.g. archiving. The whole life-cycle of a product is in scope, including operation
and maintenance.

AIPS study Page 29 June 2000

4 Shipbuilding process break-down
4.1 Shipbuilding today
Traditionally, shipbuilding has been identified with those operations and processes re-
lated with the transformation of sheet metal to steel hulls. These operations essentially
consisted in marking and cutting the sheet metal prime material in elementary building
pieces the assembly of which, in various stages (panels, sub-blocks, blocks, sections),
finally yielded the complete steel hull. Thus, three basic classes of processes could be
distinguished:
• Sheet (or beam) metal treatment processes (conditioning, marking, cutting, bend-
ing etc)
• Assembling (nowadays mostly welding)
• Handling (moving and positioning the various blocks and sub-assemblies)
Maximising the efficiency of shipbuilding essentially meant:
• Assuring the most cost-effective acquisition of the necessary prime materials and
components,
• Optimising (in terms of cost and quality) each one of the processes stated above
and
• Planning the whole sequence of operations in such a way so as to ensure a
seamless flow of material and an optimal utilisation of the available resources (la-
bour, equipment, space and time)
Today, the relative importance (at least in terms of cost) of the steel shaping and as-
sembling has decreased substantially. This is true especially for the big passenger
and ferry vessels where EU shipbuilding still holds a considerable share of the market.
In fact, due to the ever-increasing requirements in terms of passenger comfort, safety
in navigation and environmental concerns, modern passenger and ferry vessels look
more and more like huge navigating hotels or big industrial complexes. Shipbuilding
nowadays encompasses a range of processes and activities much broader than shap-
ing and assembling sheet metal steel. Less ‘traditional’ shipbuilding activities, such as
finishing and outfitting become increasingly important.
For a variety of reasons (also tackled in section 3 above), the traditional concept of
shipbuilding still prevails between in the European shipbuilding industry. Nevertheless,
there are concrete signs that this situation is beginning to change.
Another very important change happening these days is in the role that CAD tools play
in shipbuilding: The role of CAD/CAE tools in shipbuilding has traditionally been that of
enhancing the various phases of the design process and assuring shorter lead times
to the planning and the start of the production activities. Nowadays, in view of the in-
creasing complexity of the production operations and, consequently, the planning re-
quirements and the stringent lead times to market, CAD / CAE tools are rapidly acquir-
ing the role of the integrator between the ‘traditional’ design phases the planning and
production processes.
For all these reasons, design, be it basic or detailed, cannot be considered separately
not only from production planning but also from most of the individual production proc-
esses. Nevertheless, for practical reasons, we distinguish the production from the de-
sign & planning activities in terms of the different tools and technologies applied. While
production deals with the handling and transformation material objects, design and
planning activities have mainly to do with the generation and handling of information.
As such, for the purpose of the AIPS study, they are considered as fundamental com-
ponents of the integration process and the corresponding information flow rather than
parts of production process flow.
So, for the purpose of this study, we consider two types / classes of processes:
(a) The production processes, dealing with material objects and
(b) The information processes, dealing with information

AIPS study Page 30 June 2000

 Each one of them being examined in its own context:
(1) The shipbuilding production process flow scheme, as seen in Figure 1
(2) The information flow across the shipbuilding activities, as seen in Figure 2.
Although there exist significant variations according the type of vessel, the size and
specialization of each shipyard, these schemes, given in Figure 1 and Figure 2 below
give an adequate picture of the generic shipbuilding production process breakdown
structure and the corresponding information flow.

4.2 Production processes

By the term “production activities” or “production processes” we mean all the activities
that essentially consist in transforming (machining, assembling, handling, transporting
etc) material objects. In what follows, the “generic shipbuilding” is broken down to
classes of processes hereafter referred as “production processes” or “processes”. Al-
though the meaning and the sequence of these processes can vary according to the
type (i.e. tanker, container carrier, passenger ship) and size of the vessel as well as
the particular methods and mentalities each individual yard, it can be said that they
represent quite well all but the very specialised constructions.
So, the generic shipbuilding production can essentially be broken down in the follow-
ing production processes:
P.1 Raw material reception & preparation
P.2 Marking, cutting & conditioning of steel plates and profiles
P.3 Fabrication of 2D blocks: welding of flat and shaped sub-assemblies (panels
and sub-blocks)
P.4 Fabrication of 3D blocks in workshop
P.5 Pre-erection: assembly of 3D blocks and subassemblies into erection units
P.6 Prefabrication of pipes, supports, modules etc
P.7 Pre-outfitting
P.8 Blasting and painting/coating
P.9 Erection and outfitting in the dry-dock or slip-way
P.10 Outfitting (incl. piping, wiring, machinery etc.)
P.11 Finishing & outfitting onboard of the floating vessel
P.12 Commissioning & sea trials
The processes above are not necessarily sequential. Processes P.6 to P.8 in particu-
lar, are performed at various stages of the shipbuilding schedule (see Figure 1 below).
In addition, there exist two processes that are performed in support to all of the proc-
esses stated above, throughout the shipbuilding activity:
P.13 Transport & handling
P.14 Dimensional control & inspection
Another important factor to consider is where each process takes place. In that re-
spect, we can distinguish three classes of processes:
• Processes P.1 to P.7 are generally performed in a workshop with the possibility of
support for eventual production lines, semi or fully automated facilities etc.
• Processes P.9 to P.12 are performed out of the workshop, on the dry dock, slip-
way or in the floating vessel at the dockside.
• Processes P.8, P.13 and P.14 are performed either on the workshop or outside
In general, phases performed in the workshop tend to be much more efficient9 than in
dry-dock or in the floating vessel (see section 3.1.1). Consequently, there is a ten- Comment: Refer to the sec-
dency to perform as much of the outfitting, coating painting etc as early in the produc- tion: From shipbuilding to ship-
tion schedule as possible. production

9
According to [12], each man-hour of pre-outfitting is equivalent to 1.5-2.0 man-hours of out-
fitting at the dock

AIPS study Page 31 June 2000

 A first schematic representation of the generic production process flow in shipbuilding
is given in Figure 1 below. In section 5, each of the above mentioned processes is fur-
ther analysed, particularly from the automation point of view.

Raw material reception &

preparation

Marking, cutting & conditioning

of steel plates & profiles

Dimensional control & inspection (supports all processes)

Transport & handling (supports all processes)
Fabrication of 2D
blocks
Prefabrication (supports,
modules, pipes)

Fabrication of 3D
Pre-outfitting

blocks

Blasting & painting/coating

Assembly of grand
blocks / pre-erection

Erection & outfitting

Launching

Finishing & outfitting

Commissioning &
trials

Delivery

Figure 1: Shipbuilding production process flow

4.3 Information processes

Prior to construction, every vessel must be designed, the construction operations must
be planned, the automated machines must be programmed and the timely delivery of
prime materials and equipment must be assured. These activities involve the genera-
tion and manipulation of enormous amounts of information. The availability of potent
information and communication tools has increased significantly the amount of infor-
mation to be “managed”. Seamless information flow across the shipbuilding activities
is vital for the efficient realisation of each shipbuilding project. The extreme diversity,
in terms of contents, users, uses and forms, of the information necessary for the vari-
ous design and production stages make this task quite a difficult one.
In terms of content, information regards entities as different as:

AIPS study Page 32 June 2000

 • The vessel as a whole or in blocks, parts, equipment, tubing, circuitry etc
• The yard layout, personnel, facilities and equipment
• Procedures and know-how
The information users are:
• Engineers, naval architects and other specialists
• Welders, automated machine operators and other craftsmen
• The owner and the class
• External subcontractors, equipment and service providers
Information (mostly but not always computerised) can be in a variety of forms:
• 3D models,
• drawings,
• specifications,
• machine tool programming code,
• work-schedules,
• part lists,
• plans and lay-outs,
• inventories etc
In the following paragraphs we identify the main classes of information processes,
hereafter referred as “information processes”, in the context of an information-flow
scheme (Figure 2) in a generic shipbuilding process. By the term “information proc-
esses” we mean all the activities that essentially consist in generating or processing
information, essential for the subsequent realisation of one or more production proc-
esses as delineated in the section 4.2 above.
The main information processes involved in shipbuilding are:
I.1 Pre-design
I.2 Basic design
I.3 Detailed design
I.4 Building procedures
I.5 Production design & planning
I.6 Programming of automated facilities
I.7 Warehouse control
I.8 Outsourcing control
I.9 Work planning & preparation
A schematic representation of the information flow in the context of the generic ship-
building production can be seen in Figure 2 below. Fully contoured blocks denote the
main information processes, as listed above, while the dotted ones denote the produc-
tion processes, as delineated in the section 4.2 above.

AIPS study Page 33 June 2000

 Bidding
Inquiry phase

Pre-design

Contract

Design
Basic design
phase

Detailed design

Building procedures

Production
Order Production design & phase
placing planning
Pre-outfitting

Fabrication (2D & 3D)

Programming of
Warehouse & automated facilities
Work planning & preparation

parts control Assembly

Outsourcing Erection & outfitting

control

Launching

Finishing & outfitting

Sea Trials

Delivery

After-care

Figure 2: Information flow across the shipbuilding activities

AIPS study Page 34 June 2000

5 Automation of the production processes
In this section we will deal with the automation of each of the processes listed in sec-
tion 4.2 above (see also Figure 1). The processes of major interest from the automa-
tion point of view are the following:
P.2 Marking, cutting & conditioning of steel plates and profiles
P.3 Fabrication of 2D blocks: welding of flat and shaped sub-assemblies (panels
and sub-blocks)
P.4 Fabrication of 3D blocks in workshop
P.6 Prefabrication of pipes, supports, modules etc
P.8 Blasting and painting/coating
P.13 Transport & handling
P.14 Dimensional control & inspection
The state of automation / mechanisation of each one of these processes is outlined in
the following subsections. A considerable part of the information presented comes
from [32], CEPS State-of-the-Art report on General Production Technology.
Apart from the processes listed above, particular attention is given to the new produc-
tion technologies such as laser cutting and welding etc. The main reason for that is the
fact that most of these technologies cannot be conceived without a significant degree
of mechanisation / automation.

5.1 Marking, cutting & conditioning of the steel plates and profiles
5.1.1 De-scaling / priming
Typically, yards are equipped with gantries with magnet or vacuum-beam to put the
material on the charging conveyor.
Successive stations are:
• Roller conveyor
• Preheating plant (gas or oil-heated )
• Connection roller conveyor
• De-scaling plant, equipped with SI centrifugal wheel with integrated grit recycling
plant
• Connection roller conveyor
• Priming plant, with spraying sensor system controlling paint film thickness, ex-
haust system with special self cleaning filter
• Drying conveyor with exhaust system
• Roller conveyor
• Marking device
• Discharging conveyor
• Crane with magnet or vacuum-beam for transporting / storing the material
The plants are normally designed to handle plates as well as profiles. Special devices
ensure that more than one profile at a time can pass through this line.
The trend today is to minimize the stock (and finance) and avoid local environment is-
sues by ordering the plates and profiles blasted and shop-primed and almost just-in-
time (based on reliable supply from the steel mills).
5.1.2 Marking
The following methods are currently in use, usually as an attachment to the cutting
device:
• Powder marking
• Inkjet marking
• Plasma arc marking
• Laser marking

AIPS study Page 35 June 2000

 Marking in advanced shipbuilding includes
• Contract/construction number
• Plate or part number allowing also traceability from heat /lot number of the plate,
lamination direction…
• Position lines for fitting and welding
• Lines for shaping in case of curved plates
• Welding procedure(s) identification and sequence
• Identification of the sub-assembly and block where the part or plate must be fitted
5.1.3 Cutting
The following methods of cutting are in use nowadays for plate and profiles (including
bulb profiles):
• Shears: used for straight cuts normally up to 3,000 mm (Nowadays mainly used
only in the locksmith’s shops)
• Roller shears: Used for straight cuts normally up to 12,000 mm (nowadays being
replaced by thermal cutting machines)
• Water-jet cutting: due to its rather poor performance at the moment it is not widely
used
• Thermal cutting: basically we can distinguish:
• Oxy-Fuel cutting
• Plasma-Cutting
• Laser-Cutting
• A combination of the above
Plasma cutting installations are gradually taking over. Underwater plate cutting sys-
tems with dual pools (the heads are cutting in one of the pools while the other is
pumped out for cleaning, plate conditioning and unloading) provides an automated
service to any yard size.
A plate cutting system can be considered complete when it addresses all of the points
below:
• Conveyor feed-in and facilities for unloading either plates and small pieces
• Possibility to cut with the bevel for welding
• Integrated marking (identification, part number and block, procedure welding lines,
marks for bending.
• Tolerances, change of bevel on contour
• Measurement system /integrated quality control/
• Connection to the CAD system
• Multiple torch for simultaneous cutting
• Protection, insonorisation etc.
Some yards have multiple cutting lines; small yards can benefit of joint installations
like in the Nederland, where most cutting is concentrated on two specialised installa-
tions, one of them is served just-in-time by the steel mill. The Dutch cutting organisa-
tions offer complementary services such digitisation of hard drawings, and generation
of CAD information, nesting etc.
5.1.4 Automation / mechanisation
Plate cutting has been one of the first processes to be automated in shipbuilding. Cut-
ting systems are less complex than welding systems and numerical control mecha-
nized equipments have been used since 20 years ago and have been steadily improv-
ing since. Indeed, references on robotized shipyard plate cutting systems are about
ten times as numerous as welding systems. The TRIBON reference list of 1999 (Table
8 below) gives an idea on the subject.

AIPS study Page 36 June 2000

 Table 8: TRIBON robot installations, 1999
Plate cutting 47
Welding 6
Profile cutting 3

The data presented in this section mostly comes from the CEPS survey on general
production technology [32].
Mechanised surface treatment is implemented at most yards as well as in most of the
subcontractors. Mechanised 2D cutting is also fully implemented. Robotized cutting is
implemented at 50% of the yards.
Mechanised milling is implemented at 40-50% of the yards together with other edge
preparation methods.
Mechanised solutions have been developed and implemented also for the bending
and forming of plates in most of the yards.
A number of EU manufacturers offer complete production lines for surface treatment,
marking and cutting operations.
The biggest challenge appears to be the assurance of the accuracy and the cut sur-
face quality adequate for the implementation, in the successive production phases, of
laser welding techniques.

5.2 Fabrication of 2D blocks

5.2.1 Typical equipment
Basically a typical modern panel production line consists of:
• Roller bed with conveying means
• Clamping (hydraulic, magnetic, vacuum) / tacking portal
• Butt-welding gantry(s)
• Panel turnover arrangement (in some cases)
• Panel turning arrangement (90°) sometimes equipped with a thermal contour cut-
ting machine
• Stiffener pallet
• Mobile Grinding: device for the removal of primer / paint in way-off stiffeners
• Mobile stiffener gantry
• Fillet-welding gantry
• Mobile web gantry
• Web welding gantry
• Lift–off transport station
Depending on the kind of panel, all possible outfitting–elements are installed as well.
Before a panel leaves the shop, it must be ascertained that it is within allowable toler-
ances and the outfitting–elements are in the right location. So, appropriate quality as-
surance equipment, sometimes including automated optical measuring devices, is
also present.
5.2.2 Types of panel lines
The following types of panel lines are found in the shipyards:
2
Mini panel line, usable for one plate, working area under the portal(s) about 4x20 m
2 2 2
Normal flat panel line, for panels of 10x10 m , 15x15 m , 20x20 m or larger, de-
pending on the size of ships, the yard is generally building
Double bottom line, usually following the configuration / sequence:
Station 1: Inner floor plates are placed and welded together
Station 2: Floor plates are being put on the panel and welded
Station 3: Longitudinal floors are put in position and welded.

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 Station 4: Tank heating pipes and other outfitting elements will be attached.
Station 5: Already bended shell plates will be put on the floor grid and welded
Station 6: Lifted off the line onto special means of transport for moving to the ring
block section building area.
Curved panel line: There are various stations, sized for the largest anticipated panel.
Each station is equipped with a large number of adjustable stanchions. By means of
the software the upper point of all the stanchions, if being connected, forms the shape
of the curved panel in question. They usually follow the following configuration:
Station 1: The already shaped plates will be put on them and welded together.
Station 2: Frames will be put on the plate-field and welded by means of robots.
Station 3: Secondary members are being put on the panel and welded as well.
Station 4: As far as practicable outfitting elements will be put on the panel
Station 5: Lift off the line on special means of transport for moving to the block-
building area.
Girder building line, consisting of:
• Crane with beam to put web and girder on the roller – conveyor
• Press roller machine
• Welding robots
• Profile straightening machine
• Discharging conveyor
With the aid of this line the optimum profiles are being produced tailor-made.
5.2.3 Automation / mechanisation
Automation (incl. robotisation) is rather well developed. More or less automated lines
are implemented in nearly 50% of the yards.
A number of EU manufacturers offer complete custom-built production lines, more or
less automated, using various configurations.
Efficient use of laser welding methods, in order to assure minimum thermal deforma-
tions, is still an open issue. There is a number of EC sponsored and national projects
on this argument with the active participation of some of the biggest EU shipyards
(see section 5.8 below).

5.3 Fabrication of 3D blocks in workshop

3D blocks complex structures consisting of flat panels, 2D sub blocks and curved
blocks. Assembly of these units is done, in most of the yards. Mechanised welding is
installed in some yards also for closed structures (i.e. electro-gas) while some mecha-
nised solutions have been developed even for dock-area welding.
The building strategy for 3D blocks is designed so as to make the welding in best pos-
sible positions, but also maintains possibilities of efficient block outfitting.
Outfitting of 3D- blocks is important part of the modern shipbuilding philosophy. When
properly planned, major part of the outfitting can be performed in the workshop, where
the working positions are optimal and material handling much easier. After erection of
the hull the working conditions are much worse (usually top of the head installations
and the transportation of equipment and other materials much more difficult.
High degree of block outfitting means that the steel and outfitting work are parallel ac-
tivities and interact each other throughout the block assembly period. This sets certain
limitations to the automation of block assembly and the practical solutions are not very
common today. Principally the same technical solutions as in 2D- blocks can be
adapted, but the more complex shapes and the integration with the outfitting limit con-
siderably the practical possibilities.

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5.4 Prefabrication of pipes, supports, modules etc
Prefabrication of outfitting components is an efficient way to reduce the total amount of
outfitting work hours. The work done in shops is much more efficient one hour in the
workshop corresponding to about two hours onboard.

Figure 3: Process flow at a typical automated pipe shop

The automation of fabrication is also much easier in the workshops compared to the
situation in the blocks and onboard. Although manufacturing of the units and founda-
tions is still largely manual work, automation in pipe fabrication is simpler. Today it is
quite common that the cutting of the pipes is done by numerically controlled cutting
machines as well as bending of the pipes. According to [32], automated welding like
orbital pipe welding is implemented at 30% of yards. Robotised welding of outfitting
components exists only at a few yards.
The process flow in a typical automated pipe-shop is shown in Figure 3 above.

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5.5 Blasting and painting / coating
5.5.1 Blasting
The aim of getting a clean surface (SAE 2,5 Quality - SIS 05590-1967 standard) by
means of thorough blasting, can be achieved by various methods:
1. Sand and abrasive blasting is only allowed in closed and ventilated rooms. Not in
open air!
2. Copper Slag or other mineral abrasive are only to be used for tanks within the
section.
3. Grain size of steel abrasive between 0,3-1,0 mm is used for general blasting.
4. Cut wire or steel shot is used for mechanical shot-blasting.
5. High-Pressure Water-Cleaning 300-2,500 bar pressure.
6. Ice-Particles cleaning is being used only for special tasks.
The steel-blast-material is collected, sometimes under the working floor, is being
cleaned / separated and transported back to the silos for being used again.
The complete shop must be constantly “de-dusted“ of the dust by means of a very ef-
fective ventilation system. The free-blasting workers must wear breathing apparatus.
To reach the different level of a block-section normally a scaffolding system is installed
at the walls of the shop and being swung to the unit, for easy access.
In alternative to the classical methods, the “VACU-BLAST“ method consists of a unit,
which works like a vacuum-cleaner and does not need any de-fuming / de-dusting or
fresh air for the operator. This system has one handicap, the cleaned area per hour is
considerable less compared to any other method.
Shipyards tend to order the plates already blasted and shop primed. However many
yards have invested on installations to clean by blasting and paint block assemblies
after all welding (except erection) has been completed. This gives a better appearance
and plate protection (shop-primer is destroyed by welding).
5.5.2 Coating / painting
After a thorough cleaning, the block-section is painted / coated in place or after being
transported to the coating-shop. As per paint specification, the different layer of paint
will be applied, in accordance with the required curing time, by means of the paint
spraying method. The shop has to be adequately heated and ventilated.
As shown in Figure 1, page 32, a certain part of the painting / coating has to be done
on board as part of the finishing & outfitting process. As with every operation on the
dockside, it is much less efficient and less healthy than in the shop. That is why ship-
yards tend to coat and paint as early as possible in the production process. Neverthe-
less, it is estimated that 20% to 40% of the surface of a modern vessel is painted in
the dock area.
The surface to be painted / coated in modern vessels has increased dramatically the
last years on almost all vessel types; in particular in those having a double hull struc-
ture (150% more than the single hull). The total area to be painted in a typical double-
2
hull VLCC of 300,000 dwt is about 380,000 m .
Painting / coating can be quite an unhealthy work. Painters represent, directly or indi-
rectly (through subcontracting) an important part of the shipyard’s working force. Ac-
cording to [36], painters represent more than 20% of the working force of the Hitachi
Zosen Ariake works, about the same as the welders.
5.5.3 Automation / mechanisation
Despite the increasing importance of blasting and, particularly, painting / coating ac-
tivities as well as the increasing difficulties in finding painters, no substantial steps
have been taken towards the robotisation of these processes. The only significant
relevant work that we are aware of is that in [36] on a NC painting robot for shipbuild-
ing, from the Hitachi Zosen Corporation.

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 There are a number of RTD projects on robotics, which can be of potential interest for
future painting robot applications, like an IMS project on a snake robot, jointly devel-
oped by US, Japan, EU and Korea and the OCTOPUS project on the vessel topside
cleaning.

5.6 Transport & handling

In addition to the self-explanatory Figure 4 below, two more transport / handling de-
vices need to be mentioned:
• The Dual Walking Beams (DWB) units are individual working machines, com-
pletely self-contained. They are working in groups as per load-requirement and
are operated by one operator. They are designed for a load of 100 t, 200 t and
400 t per unit. The DWB units can move heavy loads over any reasonable firm
and flat ground, without the need of tracks, rails or skids. Crushed gravel is ac-
ceptable. They can overcome gaps between quay-wall and barge, cross rail-
tracks and move up or down a slope of up to 4 degrees. The maximum load up till
now handled by a DWB-system was a complete submarine having a weight of
12,000 t and being transported from the construction-shed to the launching site.
• Air Cushions, as an example those distributed by Aero-Go, US. With the aid of
fluid film technology, aero-casters use compressed air or, occasionally, liquids, to
actually float heavy loads on a thin fluid film. Individual units of a carrying capacity
starting from 0.9 t up to 400 t are available. Coupled together they also can handle
even larger loads. The only disadvantage compared to the DWB system is that the
floor-surface has to be of a much higher quality.

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 Figure 4: Usual means for handling loads

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5.7 Dimensional control & inspection
According to [33], accuracy in production is seen as a main subject where QA/QC
concepts can lead to major reductions in production costs. Today's standard concern-
ing accuracy in production seems to be on a good way but some important areas for
improvement have been identified.
3-D coordinate measurement techniques are in use at nearly all shipyards. Those who
didn't introduce them up to now have these in test or development phases. The local
plan/actual data comparison is common on most yards. Those who are not able to do
this at present are interested in doing so in the near future.
There is a high interest for R&D in this field. Most shipyards use the measurement re-
sults not only for later process improvement but also in the actual ongoing production.
The electronic data transfer is already introduced on half of the yards; all others are
highly interested in this technology.
5.7.1 Measuring techniques / devices
Tape measuring is the leading method in the various production stages from parts fab-
rication to subassemblies, including plates, curved plates and profiles, panels and
curved panels for nearly 2/3 of the yards.
For measuring sections, blocks and hull assembly less than half of the yards use 3-D
co-ordinate measurement techniques, whereas the others use theodolite systems.
Some use both systems parallel. Roughly 1/6 of the yards use these systems also for
checking panel, curved panel and subassembly tolerance control.
Two yards use stationary photogrammetric measuring both for checking parts (plates)
and panel accuracy.
For measuring the flatness the rotation laser is used on very few yards for subassem-
blies and higher production stages.
The measuring frequency is handled quite differently, spot check or 100% - check
seem to be real alternatives, only very few yards have established a systematic ap-
proach for the frequency of checks.
5.7.2 NDT methods
The standard manual NDT methods (x-ray, ultra sonic, dye penetration and magnetic
particle test) are implemented in every shipyard without exception. The technical stan-
dards are sufficient and there is no interest for further development in this field.
However, interest is put on the development of automated testing and verification pro-
cedures as well as on online process monitoring systems for welding on stationary
plants. Automated test analysis systems are in use only in 1 out of 5 yards. Conse-
quently, the interest for further RTD is rather high.
The use of light materials (aluminium, high-strength steel grades or thermo-
mechanically treated steel), and the joining or welding combinations of above, intro-
duce new challenges to prevent fatigue and corrosion failures, this requiring more ex-
tensive control in welding and service inspection.
The introduction of lighter sandwich materials that may be joined by gluing or the in-
troduction of laser welding will require the collection of testing experiences on flaw de-
tection on new databases.
The corrosion monitoring of ships’ hulls in service where ultrasonic thickness meas-
urement techniques are used, is still subject to new developments (.i.e. the resonance
method proposed by DNV). Results from thickness measurements are integrated by
the classification societies in a ship record from the construction through operation.
5.7.3 Monitoring systems for QC (Shop floor monitoring etc)
Assembly and welding sequence plans are used in almost every shipyard. The same
applies to production stage oriented welding standards.

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 Very few of the questioned shipyards have established any online process data regis-
tration system by now, but some activities can be seen in this field.
Manually prepared process data documentation is introduced on almost all yards, the
remaining ones are testing whereas product related process data documentation
through all production stages is used only on half of the yards, yet few others are in-
terested.
Product related accuracy documentation is already used by 2 yards out of 3. The
same goes for the visualisation of measurement results for the workers on the shop
floor.

5.8 Welding processes in shipbuilding

5.8.1 General
Welding is by far the most important technology applied in shipbuilding. The weight of
the metal deposited by welding in a ship can easily be as much as 3 to 4% of the total
steel weight, and the cost of the welding consumable per kg deposited can be more
than 10 times the cost of the same weight of steel. Hence, many processes are ori-
ented to as narrow gaps as possible or even in achieving the weld through the fusion
of base metal with a minimum deposition of new metal.
Although the deposition rate gives an idea of the capabilities of the basic process, the
main cost parameter to consider is the velocity of the overall welding process (in m/s),
which depends of the welding position, plate thickness, root size etc.

Table 9: Comparison of welding speed (m / min) for some welding methods, source:
Messer IGM 1999
Steel thickness 4 mm 6 mm 8 mm 12 mm
MIG / MAG 1.1 0.9 0.75 0.55
Plasma 0.45 0.35 0.25 -
Laser 2.0 1.5 1.2 1.2
MIG = Metal Inert Gas MAG = Metal Active Gas

Table 10: Weld metal consumed between 1975 and 1996, source: ESAB 1999
Welding Method Western Europe U. S. A. Japan
MMA 18 % 22 % 16 %
MIG / MAG 68 % 52 % 53 %
Solid Wire
FCW 8% 20 % 25 %
SAW 6% 6% 6%
Total weight in t 381,000 t 295,000 t 310,000 t
MMA= Manual Metal Arc MIG = Metal Inert Gas MAG = Metal Active Gas
FCW = Flux Cored Wire SAW = Submerged Arc Welding

5.8.2 The main types welding processes

The main welding processes applicable to shipbuilding today are:
Submerged arc welding (SAW) is limited to welds that can be positioned on a horizon-
tal plane. Is used extensively for butt-welding of the plates for the fabrication of the flat
panels. With copper backing (or ceramic or powder backing) steel plates up to 20 mm
thickness can be welded in one pass from one side only. Multiple arc tandem-arc, se-
ries- arc (3 arc on one pass), magnetic clamping, and procedures using metal powder
addition provides highly efficient mechanized systems for different plate thickness.
SAW tractors using movable tracks provide an effective automatic welding that can be

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 used also on assembly and erection stages (joining deck or bottom panels) and also
on continuous fillet welds (using the beam as guide). SAW welding is also widely used
for automatic T section stations
FCAW (flux core arc welding) and MCAW (metal core arc welding) semi-automatic
wire processes are now dominant in European shipbuilding and with variations of di-
ameter size, core composition and gas (electrode classification and type) have substi-
tuted almost completely the stick electrode (MMA) on production, even many subcon-
tractors still use. Some highly automated yards may still use 20-30% of manual (stick)
consumables. Solid wire (MAG) is also used as a low cost consumable with accept-
able quality.
Ceramic backing is widely used, to allow one pass welding not only on horizontal posi-
tion with sub-arc but also on semi-automatic MAG welding in any position at workshop
or on assembly or erection on dock. Savings in root grinding for the back pass and/or
on the root pass, often eliminating the 180° turn of the block, have proven cost reduc-
tion and worsens the potential advantages of robotization.
FCAW is used on mechanised station for fillet welding and robot stations. Some
mechanised stations working on 10 m up panels can weld 4 reinforcements at a time
from both sides (eight arcs). FCAW is used also on automated egg-crate welding (4
arcs at a time in vertical position) on double bottom assemblies.
Friction stir welding (FSW) has been invented and patented by The Welding Institute
(TWI). A wear resistant rotating tool is used to join sheet and plate materials such as
aluminium, copper and lead. The welds are made below the melting point in the solid
phase. The excellent mechanical properties and low distortion are attributed to the low
heat input. Three Scandinavian companies now use the process for production of
large aluminium panels made from aluminium extrusions. Research and commercial
FSW machines are now available and included complete installations to weld up to 16
m lengths. This technique is already being applied in the construction of fast ferries
and heli-decks.
5.8.3 Mechanised or semi-automated welding
In welding, the term semi-automatic is often used to design manual welding with wire
feeders (MAG or FCAW), today representing more than half of the welding in most
yards. MAG or FCAW with high performance procedures ends with a heavy gun carry-
ing the power supply, the wire, the gas supply and, today, the fume extraction hose.
When working in a wide space, the lengths of the 3 or 4 connecting houses makes the
welding gun a heavy tool to work with. Support to the welder may be from mobile sus-
pending holders to gantries where the welding system is suspended and moved
through the working area.
In shipbuilding there is also a frequent use of self propelled and guided tractors typical
on SAW on horizontal surfaces, and light mechanization devices (basically a motor-
ised device running in all positions on a track that is attached to the plate by magnets.

5.9 Laser technologies for cutting and welding

The big attraction of laser technology to the manufacturing industry, specially where
thin plate products are extensively used, is due to the limited heat deposition / disper-
sion during both laser-cutting and welding. Heat deposition causes thermal distortion,
which is an important source of re-working and low quality.
Although a big effort has been undertaken by equipment manufacturers, research cen-
tres (specially The Welding Institute, UK), gas companies, steel suppliers and, in ship-
building, the classification societies and some pioneer yards, the introduction of laser
technologies in shipbuilding has been rather slow. This in spite of the considerable
progress that has been made in other fields such as the precision, electronics and on
automotive industries.
The reasons for that lay mainly in the extensive overhauling of the whole steel produc-
tion chain which the use of laser technologies imply as well as in the very tight toler-
ances and the consequent manufacturing, handling and positioning issues.

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 Some selected references on laser technologies cutting and welding in shipbuilding
are listed from [37] to [43].
5.9.1 Actions promoting laser relevant to cutting and welding in EU
Laser cutting and welding is promoted through national programmes in UK and
Germany. In Germany the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, has funded
the Laser 2000 programme with an annual budget of 35 M€ including education and
technology transfer and support SME.
Laser manufacturers, gas suppliers and steel makers have developed new products to
make laser equipment more competitive and improve the limits of the current
equipment.
First applications of laser on shipyards are found in Germany (Meyer Werft), UK
(Vosper), Italy (Fincantieri) and Denmark (Odense). The most interested yards are the
passenger and ferry builders, using thin plate with high planariity / quality
requirements.
There is a number of EU projects on laser-technologies, including some shipbuilding
applications (see [29]), as well as a relevant thematic network (TRANSLAS).
5.9.2 Main types of lasers used for cutting and welding
CO2 lasers were first developed in USA in 1964. It can handle large power but cannot
be transmitted through fibre optics. Delivering and focusing the laser beam to the re-
quired require the use of delicate precision mirroring systems as well as the motion of
either the work-piece or the whole laser head (or both).
It can be used for cutting ferritic steels (with oxygen at low pressure), stainless steels
(with high pressure nitrogen), titanium and magnesium (with argon). It is used with
helium or argon as protective gases during welding.
Thermal efficiency is up to 10% and maximum output is about 45 kW. Applications are
around 85% on cutting, 14% on welding and 1% heat treatment.
Today, CO2 lasers can easily cut up to 20 mm of steel and weld up to 7 mm in a single
pass (applications up to 25 mm claimed).
Nd YAG (neodymium-yttrium aluminium garnet) were first developed in USA in 1964
at the same time as CO2 lasers. They are less energy efficient, and have progressed
rather slowly. The optical energy produced by Nd YAG lasers, has a significant advan-
tage when compared CO2 lasers in that it can passed through a fibre optic cable thus
allowing far greater flexibility. The auxiliary protection gases, oxygen nitrogen, helium
or argon same as for CO2 lasers.
Thermal efficiency is up to 2.5% and maximum output, to date, is about 5 kW (3 kW
practically on industry).
Nd YAG lasers are used up to 70% in precision welding, 25% on cutting and drilling
and 5% in marking.
The fibre optic transmission facility makes this laser flexibility ideal for 3D operations.
It is used quite extensively on the automotive industry (tailored blank welding) and
aerospace.
Hybrid laser / plasma systems for cutting and combined laser / arc welding are in re-
search application phase. Those pioneer shipyards that have already started using la-
ser installations are strongly interested in further R&D.
5.9.3 The advantages and constraints of laser technology in shipbuilding
The main advantages derived from using of laser technology for cutting and/or welding
are:
• The same equipment can be used for cutting and for welding, (changing optics
and gas protection)

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 • Energy can be tightly focused (a 3 kW laser focused to within a 0.2 mm diameter
2
spot generates a power density of 95 kW/mm
• Low noise and fumes
• High quality square edge cuts
• Chamfer/bevel cutting dross free, low heat affected zone
• Minimum distortion after cutting or welding
• Flexible CNC environment, potential for 3D automation
The main constraints that the use of laser technologies imposes are:
• Investment recovery/ intensive use
• Restrictions on low C, S, and Ph steels needed for welding. New or modified
cracking tests used.
• Special planarity and thickness tolerances are needed. Mill stresses released
when cutting may produce deformations on the plates, over the laser focus length
tolerance.
• Acceptance by classification societies; concern on solidification cracking after
welding, and on potential of local corrosion in some joints.
• Redesign of the weld configurations for laser welding (specially T welds)
• Cuts must be often conditioned due to excessive sharpness.
• Single pass butt-welding is limited (to 15 mm). Not competitive with the one-side
welding tandem or arc-series submerged-arc in butt-welding of plates.
Extensive testing on material properties welding 6 and 12 mm thickness with participa-
tion of the Welding Institute UK and classification societies has been performed in the
last ten years. The laser welding database extent is considered not sufficient, while
data on fatigue on service of laser welds is practically non-existent. Butt-welding with
laser with more than a 0.5 mm gap requires filler metal (or tandem laser), this intro-
duces another variable. Progress on laser hybrid welding processes will be slow and
may be promoted only for other specific applications and procedures where sufficient
testing and guarantees can be provided. Applications on non-critical / structural parts
of passenger ships, i.e. superstructures, can progress more quickly.
5.9.4 Automation issues
A laser facility, in contrast to other means of welding, has to be completely automated.
It cannot be manual, semi-automated or mechanically assisted. The automation re-
quirements, in particular of the laser welding processes, are one of the most important
bottlenecks in the practical application of laser technologies in shipbuilding. The main
issues are:
• Manufacturing accuracy (tolerances, planarity etc)
• Precise delivery (position, speed and focus) of the CO2 beam; it implies either the
precise positioning of the pieces to be welded or the precise positioning of the
whole CO2 laser equipment
• Avoidance or compensation of the thermal distortions during the laser welding
process
• Reliable operation; avoidance of expensive, off-line calibrations

5.10 Automating one-of-a-kind processes

The main reason for which the largest part of shipbuilding processes are not yet
automated lies in the very nature of the shipbuilding operations coupled with the fact
that the robotic market has been almost entirely dominated and tailored to the large
volume automotive and commodities industry. In fact:
1. Almost none of the shipbuilding operations are exactly repeatable; at best they are
similar. Many operations are performed only once or at most a very limited num-
ber of times.
2. Many of them, especially the assembly operations, involve very important pay-
loads, in terms of mass, volume and cost.

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 As what robotics is concerned, these two facts are of fundamental importance. They
mark a clear cut with the robotics and automation technologies as applied in the large
production volume industries like automotive or commodities manufacturing. For ex-
ample, let us consider the automotive industry:
• Most of the operations are repeatable over many thousands of identical cycles in-
volving, most of the times, limited payloads;
• Planning and optimisation of even the most complex processes can be achieved
not only through simulation but also through trial and error;
• Operations can be “taught” and the concept of repeatability (precision in repeating
a path under given conditions) is more important than accuracy as such.
• Accuracy is usually assured through very rigid mechanical parts and low payload
to own weight ratios.
• There are no particular safety and reliability issues.
In the context of a typical shipyard (or, in fact, in many heavy industries or construction
sites) none of the above conditions is true. On the contrary:
• Operations are generally one-of-a-kind, that is almost no operation is identical to
another; at best they can be similar to each other.
• Planning and optimisation can usually be achieved only through simulation,
• Payloads can be very important;
• Teaching is impossible;
• Usually, there exist important safety and reliability issues due to the important
masses and dimensions involved and to the very big capital cost of the equipment
and the payload involved.
In such conditions (i.e. one-of-a-kind operations), the most important performance cri-
teria of a manipulating robotic system are the ease of path planning and/or the opera-
tional flexibility. Autonomy in the execution of certain tasks is a must for ensuring the
above stated characteristics.
Although some elements of low-level task autonomy are built in some widespread ap-
plications (i.e. the control of the electrode across a weld) heavy industry has made lit-
tle profit from such technologies, especially in what concerns the field of heavy robot-
ics and handling applications. In fact, many such operations are still performed by
"non intelligent" equipment such as heavy-duty transporters or manipulators that are
usually under the direct control of the human operator. The fact that in some cases
(i.e. inaccessible or hazardous environment) the operator is assisted by a more or less
sophisticated sensorial systems (i.e. tele-camera, proximity sensors, force sensing)
does not remove him from the control and responsibility for each of the low level tasks
(see Figure 5 below). This lack of autonomy in performing low-level tasks is an impor-
tant source of low quality, errors and delays.

Actuators
motion commands Motion & Internal
from MMI Controller Sensors

HMI
monitoring
REAL
information WORLD
External
Sensors

Figure 5: Non-supervised manipulating system; information from external sensors (if

they exist) serve for assisting the operator to command the manipulator

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 Actuators
motion commands Control & Internal
System Sensors

HMI
REAL
monitoring
information WORLD
SUPERVISORY External
commands SYSTEM Sensors
& mission
plans

Figure 6: Supervised manipulating system; information from external sensors are fed
to the control system rather than assisting the operator to command the
manipulator

Integration of the right sensorial information in a supervisory control type scheme (like
the one depicted in Figure 6 above) can permit the autonomous execution of many
low-level tasks with two important consequences:
(a) the human operators of robotic manipulators could be concentrated in high level
activities (such as planning and supervision) instead of performing low level tasks
(such as collision avoidance, precision positioning etc).
(b) “Small” variations in the work-pieces or in the working environment could be dealt
without any need of reprogramming off-line automated or robotised facilities.
Examples of low-level tasks that could be executed autonomously include:
• Obstacle avoidance;
• Adapt to the execution of “similar”, not exactly repetitive operations;
• Corrections for work-piece or workspace “inaccuracies” (i.e. due to thermal defor-
mations)
Task autonomy cannot be achieved but through novel “intelligent” control schemes in-
tegrating sensorial systems. It implies the use of data fusion, hard real time comput-
ing, autonomous mission execution etc., techniques that are far from being estab-
lished in the environment of manufacturing or engineering industries (see next para-
graph) but are used extensively in some military, deep-sea, space and other "high
tech" applications. Specially in heavy robotics, when manipulating large and heavy
loads, new tracking techniques compensating or bypassing the inevitable mechanical
inaccuracies are required for reliable precision positioning and handling.
It is noteworthy that, according to the IFR (International Federation of Robotics) classi-
fication [10], no such class of industrial manipulating robots is foreseen. Autonomy is
only foreseen in the new category of “service robots”. According to a preliminary defi-
nition by IFR, service robot is a robot which operates semi or fully autonomously to
perform services useful to the well being of humans and equipment, excluding manu-
facturing operations.
An additional factor to consider is that most heavy robotics/handling installations in
shipbuilding and other heavy industries are tailored made, often by the final user him-
self. This prohibits the amortisation of the cost for the introduction of technologies
such as stated above. The already high development cost is further augmented be-
cause of the inherent safety and reliability requirements implying extensive testing and
validation procedures and the big and expensive experimental facilities needed for the
experimental demonstration, testing and validation procedures.

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5.11 Conclusions
The first part of the steel production process (marking, cutting, 2D blocks etc) is al-
ready quite well automated. The 3D block and grand-block assembly as well as the
dockside erection are very difficult to be automated or robotised. The nature of these
operations, which are one-of-a-type, may involve important payloads and are often
performed in inaccessible places, makes efficient and cost-effective automation diffi-
cult.
Robotic technology, up to now driven mainly by series production, like in the automo-
tive industry, is not yet mature to offer economically viable solutions. Availability of in-
dustrial, sensor-based robotic systems assuring autonomous task execution, even at
low-level, is a prerequisite for the efficient automation of the afore-mentioned proc-
esses.
The driving force for new solutions in the 3D block and grand block assembly as well
as the dockside operations will be the need to alleviate workers from tedious, un-
healthy and dangerous jobs rather the need to increase efficiency.
At a short / medium term, these solutions are likely to focus on intelligent mechanisa-
tion or robotised assistance techniques rather than complete automation. Neverthe-
less, at long term, when the necessary technology becomes mature, also these opera-
tions will inevitably be robotised, if not but for the predicted scarcity of skills like man-
ual welders and painters.

AIPS study Page 50 June 2000

6 Design, planning & logistics
6.1 General considerations
An important part of the information reported in this section on the design tools is
based on reference [31], that is on SoA report of the PRODIS thematic network, is-
sued on November 1999. Information on CIM and logistics is based on reference [35],
that is on SoA report of CEPS on thematic area 10 on CIM & logistics in shipbuilding.
Another very concise document on modern ship design is the future of ship design, by
DELTAMARIN Ltd, [44]. Several data, especially on the 3D and 4D product model,
have been taken from this document.
By the term design activities we mean all these activities that generate the information
necessary for the realisation of a shipbuilding project. In a somewhat more restricted
interpretation, design is associated just with the product, that is the vessel itself; activi-
ties having to do with production scheduling, warehouse control etc are not classified
as design activities. In this report the term “design” will be used in its broad interpreta-
tion, encompassing production design and planning, scheduling etc.

6.2 The importance of ship design

Recent evolution of the EU shipbuilding (see section 3.1 above), in parallel to the di-
minishing relative importance of steel working, have caused a significant increase in
the volume, value and relative importance of the design activities. In fact, design ac-
tivities (including management) can easily reach over 10% of the cost of a modern
passenger vessel [44]. What is even more important is the fact that design activities
have an important impact on many other costs like materials, subcontracting, produc-
tion etc as well as on delivery time. The importance of design activities has been rec-
ognised by the big EU yards, which invest considerable sums on enhancing and inte-
grating their design activities.
In [44], DELTAMARIN Ltd has gathered and analysed more than 50 recently built pas-
senger cruise ships of all sizes. Rather big, sometimes amazing, differences have
been found in terms of space utilisation. Even if some of the differences can be ex-
plained by different vessel characteristics, there appears to be no plausible explana-
tion other than the differences in design quality and efficiency. Analysing the space-
weight relation of recently built cruise ships shows that the most efficient ship has 40%
more effective area per lightweight ton compared with the least efficient. A typical dif-
ference is about 20%, which can already be considered to be high. The vessel type
and standard may have certainly an impact on these numbers, but otherwise it is diffi-
cult to find other explanations except efficiency in the design.
Hence, ship design efficiency is of vital importance to shipbuilding industry. In spite of
the considerable investments and the developments in the various design tools and
methods, there is still considerable room for improvement and substantial economic
return potential.

6.3 Ship design activities

We can distinguish, according to its utilisation (i.e. the client for which the design is
made), in 3 main types of ship design:
• Pre-design (conceptual and contract design)
• Basic design (including class design)
• Detail design
As far as the approach and tools employed we can distinguish:
• CFD for the hydrodynamic calculations, usually aimed at the verification or optimi-
sation of the hull form and the propulsion
• Classification rules for the verification of the vessel structure under the specific
design loads and conditions

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 • FEA used for structural analysis, usually aimed at the verification or optimisation
of the vessel structure under the specific design loads and conditions
• Surface modelling for fairing detail definition of the main hull surfaces
• Solid modelling for the creation of part models
• 3D ship product model
6.3.1 Pre-design
Under the term “pre-design” we include all the conceptual and the contractual design
activities. Pre-design is essentially based on the owner’s specific requirements as well
as on the applicable rules and regulations. It is of paramount importance for the suc-
cess and the profitability of the shipbuilding project, it makes extensive use of a wide
range of tools and requires very experienced, high-level personnel. It involves the fol-
lowing activities:
(a) Selection of the general ship configuration, main dimensions and coefficients: This
activity is usually based on the judgement, experience and creativity of the de-
signer. Some artificial intelligence (AI) tools have been proposed recently but, for
the time being, they have been of limited use. No particular breakthrough is to be
expected in this field.
(b) Preliminary design of the hull form: Although it makes extensive use of specialised
CAD packages, it is mainly based on the experience of the designer. Some tools
have appear recently, which generate directly the hull form out of the principal di-
mensions and coefficients.
(c) Still water hydrostatic calculations: This field is well known; it has been among the
first computer based applications in shipbuilding.
(d) Still water hydrodynamic calculations: Although significant advances have been
made in the field of CFD, mainly in what concern the numerical model preparation
(pre-processing) and the visualisation of the results (post-processing), CFD hydro-
dynamic calculations are reliable only in conjunction with basin model tests or when
extensive tests and measurements exist for similar ships.
(e) Ship structural configuration: It involves the definition of the decks and bulkheads
as well as weight, volume and centre of gravity calculations. It is a rather well ad-
dressed field with a number of PC-based software packages (mainly from classifi-
cation societies), which assist the designer to rapidly try and evaluate various alter-
natives.
(f) Loading conditions and sea keeping analysis: Loading and sea keeping conditions
are selected according to the rules and regulations for each particular vessel type.
There exist a number of commercially available packages for the investigation and
analysis of the results.
(g) Main equipment data sheets and requirements: Most of the work involved here is
straight forward, based on experience as well as on applicable rules and regula-
tions.
Although adequate computer tools are available for almost each of the above-
mentioned activities, a lot is remains to be done regarding their utilisation in an inte-
grated environment. The pressure exercised on the shipyards for shorter delivery
times in conjunction with the increasing engineering work in an increasingly complex,
concurrent environment, puts in first priority the integration of all these pre-design ac-
tivities.
6.3.2 Basic design (contractual / class)
Basic design is based on pre-design activities, focused on the specific class approval
requirements and producing other necessary schemes and arrangements for detail
design. Part of the documentation has to be approved by the ship owner. It involves
the following activities:
• Hull structure scantlings necessary for class approval: PC based software is usu-
ally provided by the class
• FEA structural model(s) for class approval.

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 • Hull structure class drawings: Only a subset of detailed drawings is required. Nec-
essary data can usually be obtained from the first steps of 3D ship product model-
ling.
• Equipment data sheets: In most cases it involves just the use of spreadsheets
• Piping, instrumentation and electrical diagrams: Relatively simple graphic editors
(with some accounting capability) can handle the job. Recently, 3D ship product
model is used so that the data entered to be consistent and available for the later
detail design phase. The same holds true for the general arrangement drawings.
• Eventual updates and/or modifications necessary for class approval
In general, most tools used in basic design activities are well established and used
throughout the range of the involved organisations. Communications and integration /
interfacing between pre, class and detail design activities are items in which there is
room for significant improvement.
Class design is an important part of basic design, focused on the specific class ap-
proval requirements. Indeed, many classification societies offer, often for free, very
comprehensive software packages covering most needs for basic design. Recently,
some of them have begun developing 3D ship product software packages [17] in
which they plan to integrate, in a product life cycle approach, all the class related in-
formation about a vessel, from pre-design to periodic inspections, eventual modifica-
tions and maintenance down to its decommissioning and scrapping.
6.3.3 Detail design
The main scope of the detailed design activities is production itself. In general, the
amount of work involved (in terms of man-hours) is considerably higher than either pre
or class design; it is generally performed by personnel of lower qualification. Detail de-
sign associated with the traditional steel part of shipbuilding is well covered by a range
of software products.
Detail design usually started only when pre-design had been completed and class de-
sign had been quite advanced. Shorter delivery times and increasing amount of engi-
neering work have created significant overlaps, which are only recently started being
managed by the introduction of concurrent engineering and other collaborative tools.
The boundaries between the pre, class and detail design are fading as the lead-time
from contract to production and delivery become shorter and shorter.
Powerful, integrated CAD packages promising integrated concurrent engineering and
collaborative product commerce and resource planning solutions are still in develop-
ment by the major CAD vendors.

6.4 Ship design software tools

6.4.1 Hydrodynamics
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has entered commercial shipbuilding from mili-
tary and aerospace applications through academia, relevant RTD institutions and tow-
ing tanks, which will continue to be the main producers and users of CFD codes.
The ultimate purpose of any CFD code is to provide the solution of the Navier-Stokes
equations for time-dependant, 3D, laminar or turbulent flow around bodies of arbitrary
shape. This objective is far from reached, principally because of insufficient under-
standing of basic physical phenomena involved. In particular, the complex vortex flow
near the stern of the ship cannot be adequately modelled.
Although CFD tools alone cannot predict the still water behaviour of a given hull with
sufficient accuracy, they constitute valuable design tools, used in conjunction with tow-
ing tank tests or for comparative analysis of various alternative forms.
Because of the great economic impact of the fuel consumption and the high impact of
propeller induced vibration and noise on comfort, the area of resistance and propul-
sion is the best-developed hydrodynamic area. Nevertheless, CFD tools alone are not
capable of predicting the sea-keeping or manoeuvring characteristics of a vessel, the
local loads or the ship’s behaviour on extreme conditions.

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 Further development efforts are driven by the need for an increasingly fast and accu-
rate early design rather than the need of more accurate and elaborate solutions.
6.4.2 Structural
The primary tool for the definition of the structure and scantlings is the Classification
Codes. Otherwise, more or less standard FEA packages such as NASTRAN, ANSYS,
ABAQUS and other, are used for the hull structural analysis. FEA techniques and
methods are fairly standard and rather well developed. On the contrary, an important
domain where significant progress has been made lately is that of pre and post-
processing. This is due to the significant increase of the graphics capabilities of both
UNIX and PC based systems as well as to the new OOP techniques that allow for the
building of dedicated, user-friendly interfaces.
As in the hydrodynamic codes described in the previous section, further development
efforts are driven by the need for an increasingly fast and accurate early design and
are likely to be focused in the following areas:
• Quick definition of an early FEA hull model based on a skeleton configuration of
the main structure.
• Mesh parameterisation and re-use.
• Integration of meshing with other phases of the basic and detail design.
Finally, due to the complexity of the FEA calculations and the consequent high level of
qualification required by the personnel, medium and small yards are not likely to be
using them but on exceptional occasions.
6.4.3 Thermal shrinkage prediction
Heat shrinkage is considered in the detail design process on almost all of the yards.
Half of them define shrinkage values for all assembly stages separately and are thus
able to attribute shrinkage to the actual cause and location. The others have to distrib-
ute shrinkage over the complete part. In addition to some ongoing development activi-
ties there is a strong interest in developing methods that allow attributing shrinkage
values to the area where it occurs.
Calculation of shrinkage values is done either manually or automatically (in 1 out of 3
yards). They are mostly based on empirical databases. There exist a definite interest
for increased use of automatic calculations. The shrinkage calculation programmes
are either stand-alone solutions or integrated into the CAD packages. There is a very
big interest for highly integrated solutions.
Numerical (FEA) methods for shrinkage calculation are not in widespread use.
6.4.4 Decision Support Systems
Intelligent constraint based programmes are in use at about 20-30% of the shipyards
and primarily in Europe. Applications include both assembly planning (product break-
down), scheduling and capacity planning. Ongoing development is being evaluated
particularly in the USA and in Europe in connection with ESPRIT and EUREKA pro-
jects.
Simulation tools are used at about one third of the responding shipyards throughout
the world. Applications relate to assembly planning, schedule and capacity planning
as well as facility evaluations. In addition simulation of robot processes and applica-
tions is increasingly practised. Further developments are in hand related to capacity
planning (bottle-necks) and robot simulation.
Virtual reality tools are currently not so widespread in Europe; more so elsewhere,
particularly in USA, in the areas of internal design development and production
evaluation. They are more widespread (about 47%) in a wide spectrum of yards par-
ticularly for the discussions with owners. Development is particularly seen in relation to
complex ship types such as passenger ships and especially naval vessels.
As what further development is concerned, operational applications must increase in
order to optimise decision making with regard to engineering and production for ship

AIPS study Page 54 June 2000

 projects ensuring quick responses compatible with the new CAE potential. More in
particular:
At short term:
• Constraint based programming for assembly planning and production planning
• Further development of steel production simulation
At long term:
• Extended use of virtual reality for internal applications such as design develop-
ment and design for production
• Use of multi media in training
6.4.5 Process data & workshop control
DNC systems are in use universally for steel cutting facilities and 75% of yards have
DNC operated pipe bending. Outside of these areas, 50% of yards have other applica-
tions including robots and more specialist machine applications. Development of PDM
(Process Data Management) applications is particularly focused on robotics. However,
this area has not been fully developed yet. Further R&D is required to gather and ap-
ply better process data and thereby ensure optimal process, automation and quality
solutions.
Development of workshop control systems is driven by automation but has not
achieved the same level as PDM with only 60 % applied in steel cutting and 50 % in
pipe fabrication. Decentralised control of robot cells exists and also coordination be-
tween cells for detail scheduling etc is practised to some extent (< 40 %). The systems
are not fully deployed yet, further integration and decentralisation is required, including
the human aspects, is under development. Particularly applications outside the auto-
mated areas of shipbuilding i.e. main assembly, erection and outfitting are very limited
and require further development. The extension of CIM in production beyond the basic
requirements of current robot and automation applications is required. The solutions
should seek optimal production utilisation, flexibility and user interfaces.
The following R&D needs have been identified:
At short term:
• Development of planning data and tools linked to design systems with a view to
reduction of lead time for production preparation and planning.
• Development of prototype fabrication cells using human oriented principles for op-
eration and work organisation.
• Development of daily workshop planning tools for steel and outfitting for ship-
building based on intranet and focused on human centred interfaces and opera-
tional organisation.
At long term:
• Real time process control
• Productivity control methods
6.4.6 3D computer modelling
3D computer models are still mainly prepared to compensate the actual plastic design
models. Most of the models, modelling techniques, are specific for structural or piping
design.
Models of complete vessels with all disciplines included are still rare. 3D computer
modelling technique is generally not used at the project design stage.
Ideally, 3D computer modelling technique should be applied in accordance with the
actual design procedure, i.e. starting from the project design phase before the ship-
building contract is even signed. The same model should then be extended into a real
product when design and engineering are proceeding. There exist a number of com-
panies and shipyards that, together with major CAD vendors, are moving towards pro-
viding more or less complete product model based shipbuilding solutions. Neverthe-

AIPS study Page 55 June 2000

 less, this target is a very ambitious one and, no matter what the various vendors ad-
vertise, it is still very far from being achieved.
6.4.7 Material Flow Management
Bar Coding systems are increasingly used internationally both for steel material (over
40%) and for outfitting (33%). However, on-line material monitoring is, as yet not so
widely implemented. Automated warehouses are operational at a third of the yards
primarily at the large yards building ship types with high outfit content.
Development of advanced logistics systems is limited to certain key areas and is, in
part, related to other automation solutions. Further development of innovative logistics
concepts and solutions is necessary. The following R&D needs have been identified:
At short term:
• Increased application of automated material handling systems in shipyard envi-
ronment
• Material flow / information management with ship data model
At long term:
• Production Logistics Systems
• Transport Management Systems
6.4.8 Shipbuilding related software
A good overview of the use of the CAD / CAE tools in shipbuilding is found in [25]. A
list of the major commercial CAD / CAE packages for shipbuilding, available in the
market today is listed in Table 11 below. Hydrodynamics and ship theory software is
listed in Table 12 while class / rules related software is listed in Table 13.
Apart from the specific SW packages listed here there is a number of general purpose
CAD / CAE packages are used in shipbuilding. They mostly include FEA packages
(i.e. ANSYS, NASTRAN, ABAQUS) but also specialised robotic and CAM packages
(i.e. ENVISION, ROBCAD).
In addition, a number of shipyards have developed and use their own SW, which is not
commercially available. It mostly has to do with logistics and production planning SW
but in some cases custom-made CAD / CAM packages have been reported.
Nowadays however, there is a clear tendency to separate such SW development ac-
tivities from the core business of the shipyards. This is done, generally, by forming
separate companies, which provide IT services to the mother shipyard and, possibly,
to other clients. Such solutions, apart from the functional implications to the shipyard,
offer an additional flexibility in terms of wider market integration through mergers, ac-
quisitions by big SW vendors etc.

Table 11: List of major ship design and ERP software used in Europe
Program name Company Category
TRIBON Solutions AB, Design and production sys-
St.Varvsgatan 1, tem for shipyards
P.O.box 50555,
S-20215 Malmoe, Sweden,
TRIBON tel: +46-40-10-3455,
fax: +46-40-978415
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.tribon.com
Dassault Systems / IBM CAD/CAM/CIM for shipbuild-
CATIA / CADAM
France ing
Shipbuilding http://www.catia.ibm.com/
INTERGRAPH Marine Products Division Design of ship model details,
tel: +1-256-730-7762, compartments, structure and
Integrated Ship De-
+1-800-345-4856, equipment
sign & Production fax: +1-256-730-6708
http://www.intergraph.com

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 SENER, CAD/CAM/CIM for shipbuild-
Ingeneria y Sistemas, S.A. ing
Severo Ochoa, 4-P.T.M. 28760
Tres Cantos,
FORAN v.40 Madrid, Spain
tel: +34-91-807-7185,
fax: +34-91-807-7203
http://www.foransystem.com/
e-mail: [email protected]
DEFCAR CAD/CAM DEFCAR Engineering, CAD/CAM/CIM for shipbuild-
ing
modules Spain
CADMATIC OY, Ship design software
Vahaheikkilantie 37,
20810 Turku, Finland,
tel: +358-2-412-411,
fax: +358-2-412-4444
http://www.cadmatic.com/
e-mail:[email protected]
NUPAS –CADMATIC Numeriek Centrum Groningen B.V.,
Osloweg 110, 9723 BX Groningen, The
Netherlands,
tel: +31-50-5412-632,
fax: +31-50-5423-717
http://www.ncg.nl
e-mail:[email protected]
Yachting Consult Integrated work preparation
Nieuwe Emmasingel 17 hull interior and piping
5611 AM Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Master Ship tel 31 (0) 40 24 32 395 Integration of
fax 31 (0) 40 24 46 137 EDM/PDM/ERP
www.yachtingconsult.com
SARC Scheepsbouwkundig Advies en Hull design, structure
RekenCentrum BV
Eikenlaan 3,
Fairway 1406 PK, Bussum, the Netherlands
PIAS tel: +31 (0) 35 69 15 024
fax: ++31 (0) 35 69 18 303
http://www.sarc.nl
e-mail: [email protected]
Logimatics AS Material and production
Sofiendalsvej 9 control system for shipyards
DK-9200 Aalborg SV, Danmark,
tel: +45-98186511,
MARS fax: +45-98184599
http://www.logimatic.dk
e-mail: [email protected]
In Poland: e-mail: [email protected]
SPAR Associates, Inc., Enterprise resource man-
927 West Street, Annapolis, agement software, project
Maryland MD 21401 USA management
Perception tel: +1-410-2638593,
fax: +1-410-2670503
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.sparusa.com
Caretronic Ingenieurbuero GmbH Pipe design and production
PipeFAB, IsoFAB, Niels-Bohr-Ring 3a software
D-23568 Luebeck, Germany
HullFAB, Material,
tel: +49-451/389 72-0,
Scopelink, UniDAT, fax: +49-451/344 63
RoboFIX http://www.caretronic.de
e-mail: [email protected]
Project Engineering CADCENTRE Limited Process plant design solu-
tions: design and integration
System, Design High Cross, Madingley Road
Cambridge, CB3 0HB, UK of data
Manager, Plant De-
tel: +44 (0)1223 556655,
sign Management fax: +44 (0)1223 556666,
System, Plant Visu- http://www.cadcentre.co.uk,
alisation, etc e-mail: [email protected]
Formations Design Systems Pty. Ltd. CAD/CAM/CIM for shipbuild-
Australia ing: design, analysis, con-
MaxSurf CAD/CAM & tel: +61-8-9335-1522 struction
HydroMax fax: +61-8-9335-1526
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.formsys.com

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 Autoship Systems Corp. Head Office: Design system with export
AutoShip, 312-611 Alexander St. Vancouver BC, direct to NC cutting systems
Canada V6A 1E1
AutoPower, AutoHy-
tel: +1-604-254-4171,
dro, AutoBuild, fax: +1-604-254-5171
AutoPlate, AutoNC, e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.autoship.com
UK Royal Navy Navy shipbuilding: design,
Agent: analysis, construction for
Graphic Research Corporation ships and submarines
GODDESS Portsmouth, PO1 3DN, UK
tel: +44-(0)1705 291666
fax: +44-(0)1705 291888
e-mail: [email protected]
DELTAMARIN Ltd. Virtual reality model for ship
Purokatu 1, FIN-21200 Raisio, Finland design.
DELTAMARIN tel: +358 (2)437 7311,
fax: +358 (2)438 0378,
e-mail: [email protected]
DESIGN SYSTEMS EUROPE Design software: hull, pro-
Design Systems & Technologies, pellers, classification rules
International Marine 150 Rue de Goa, F-06600 Antibes, verification, shipyard man-
Software Associates France agement and production
(IMSA) tel: +33-492-911324
fax: +33-492-911338
100622,[email protected]
AeroHydro Inc., 3D boats modelling, fairing
PO Box 684, 54 Herrick Road, and CAD software
Southwest Harbor, ME 04679-0684,
USA
tel: +1-207-244-4100,
fax: +1-207-244-4171
e-mail: [email protected]
MultiSurf http://www.aerohydro.com.com
European Representative:
Reinhard Siegel, P.O.Box 4027,
D-24039 Kiel, Germany
tel: +49-431-352-36,
fax: +49-431-352-37, e-
mail:[email protected]
Proteus Engineering, Naval Architecture Software
301 Pier One Road, Suite 200,
Stevensville, MD-21666 USA
FlagShip tel: +1-410-6437496,
fax: +1-410-6437535,
e-mail:[email protected]
http://www.access.digex.net/~proteus
Electronic Product COMPUTERVISION Corporation, Hybrid modelling, multi-user
100 Crosby Drive, Bedford, MA, 01730- assembly architecture,
Definition (EPD),
1480 USA, product and process enter-
Shipbuilding Solu- tel: +01-617-275-1800, prise data management
tions http://www.cv.com
WM-data Oy, Software for calculating of
Ilmarisentie 20, projects quotations
SYSTLA FIN-15200 Lahti, Finland
Projector V8 tel: +385-3-2538511,
fax: +385-3-2538520,
[email protected]
ARAC Kranendonk
Robot programming
Arithmetic Robot Application Holland
Control
NautiCAD SRL, Design and production soft-
Via Arezzo 9, ware for shipyards
54036 Marina di Carrara, Italy
NauSHIP tel: +39-585-859280
fax: +39-585-859295
[email protected]

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 Table 12: Software packages on ship theory and hydrodynamics
Program name Company Category
Napa Oy (Ltd), Design systems for ship-
PO box 322, Munkkisaarenkatu 2 yards, including damage
Naval Architecture FIN-00151 Helsinki, Finland stability
Package tel: +358 0 228131,
fax: +358 0 22813800
http://www.napa.fi
Marine Software Creative Systems Inc. Calculation of trim, stability
P.O.box 1910, Port Townsend, Wash. and longitudal strength
93368, USA,
General Hydrostatics tel: +1-360-385-6212,
fax: +1-360-385-6213
e-mail:[email protected]
http://www.GHSport.com/HOME.HTM
SML Software Shipmo PC - seakeeping
(division of Fleet Technology Limited), predictions, Shaftkit 2.0 -
311B Legget Dr, Kanata, ON, Canada marine shaftline static
Shipmo PC, K2K 1Z8, alignment and vibration
Shaftkit 2.0 tel: +1-613-592-2830, fax: +1-613-592- analysis
4950,
e-mail:[email protected]
http://www.fleetech.com
Hydrocomp Inc., PropCAD - propeller design
20 Rigley Avenue, Suite 100, Annapolis, software, PropExpert- pro-
PropCAD, PropEx- MD 21401 USA peller selection software
pert tel: +1-410-2687810,
fax: +1-410-2687812,
75477,[email protected]
Scheepsbouwkundig Advies en More information
RekenCentrum (SARC) BV
PIAS Eikenlaan 3,
1406 PK, Bussum, the Netherlands
Fairway tel: +31 (0) 35 69 15 024
LOCOPIAS fax: ++31 (0) 35 69 18 303
http://www.sarc.nl
e-mail: [email protected]

Table 13: Class related software packages, rules and databases

Program name Company Category
Det Norske Veritas,
Veritasveien 1, N-1322 Hoevik, Norway,
Ship design analysis, stres-
Nauticus hull tel: +47-6757-9900,
ses and deformations
fax: +47-67579911,
http://www.dnv.com
Det Norske Veritas,
Veritasveien 1, N-1322 Hoevik, Norway,
Class information for ship,
tel: + 47-6757-9900,
DNV Exchange fax: +47-67579911,
ISM management, surveys
schedule
http://www.dnv.com/dnv-exchange
e-mail:[email protected]
Lloyd's Register and UK P&I Club Database of Year 2000
Ship 2000 http://www.ship2000.com compliant equipment
Bureau Veritas
17 bis, Place des Reflets
Hull structural design and
VeriSTAR 92400 La Défence 2, Courbevoie, Paris
condition monitoring
France
http://www.veristar.com
Nippon Kaiji Kyokai,
4-7 Kioi-Cho, Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo 102,
Japan,
tel: +81-3-3230-1201,
Ship design and manage-
fax: +81-3-3230-3524,
ment, checks conformity
PrimeShip http://www.infoweb.or.jp/classnk
with classification rules of
London office:
ClassNK, Japan.
6th Fllor Finsbury Circus, London EC2M
7EB,
tel: +44-171-621-0963,
fax: +44-171-626-0383

AIPS study Page 59 June 2000

 The Institute of Marine Engineers, Reference to over 54000
The Memorial Building, 76 Mark Lane, maritime publications from
London EC3R 7JN, UK. 1940 to 1996
Marine Technology
tel: +44-171-481-8493,
Abstract fax: +44-171-488-1854,
http://www.engc.org.uk/IMarE,
e-mail:[email protected]
Marine Computing Electronic publications on
Fairplay Publications Limited , Book disks CD
Guide, World Ship-
Sales Department,
ping Statistics, Ports e-mail: [email protected],
Guide, World Sip- http://www.fairplay-publications.co.uk
ping Encyclopaedia
Lloyd's Maritime Information Services, Shipping databases: charac-
69-77 Paul Street, London EC2A 4LQ, teristics, history, casualty,
United Kingdom basing on Lloyd's List.
Data Catalogue tel: +44(0)171 553 1683
fax: +44(0)171 553 1961
e-mail: [email protected],
Shipping Publications A/S, Ship information database
P.O.box 43 Sentrum, N-3521 Larvik,
INS Data Norway
tel: +47-33181113,
fax: +47-33183676
IMI A/S Norwegian marine trade
Skipsfartens Innk- P.O.box 1513, Sandefjord, Norway, companies catalogues
joepsbok, Norwegian tel: +47-33466844, fax: +47-33466834,
Marine Equipment http://www.imi.no,
e-mail:[email protected]
IMO International Maritime Organization,
4 Albert Embankment, London SE1
7SR, UK,
IMO books tel: +44-(0)171-463-4137,
IMO publications on CD
fax: +44-(0)171-587-3241
[email protected]

As it can be seen in the tables above, Europe dominates shipbuilding related CAD
tools with 3 major providers and numerous SMEs providing high value software pack-
ages and services, and the European based Classification Societies, are well placed
with its own software in the centre of the world-wide shipbuilding design process.
Europe is also well advanced in automation and systems integrators, and in the use of
new materials and processes.
Europe has not limited to adapt the automotive or wide oriented CAD or automation to
shipbuilding, but has created most of the European systems from inside the yards,
from academia and shipyard spin-off innovators. This has not been the case of USA
and most Asia. This has created initially some proliferation of software and systems,
but now European mergers, association of firms and facilities to combine different
software and data-banks, facilitates the multiple choice or migration for specific appli-
cations.
East Asian shipbuilders leading the world shipbuilding market are still customers of
European software, classification societies, engine licenses and other key parts. A no-
table exception comes from the collaboration of the Korean shipbuilder Hyundai
Heavy Industries (HHI) and one of the leading American CAD vendors, the Parametric
Technology Corporation (PTC), for the realisation of the “Pro/Engineering Shipbuilding
Solutions” [28], based on the well-known homonymous general purpose CAD system.

AIPS study Page 60 June 2000

7 Integrating design, production & supply chain
Integration of the shipbuilding processes essentially consists in assuring the flawless
operation of the information flow between the various stages of the engineering, de-
sign, planning and production processes as shown in Figure 2. Some important issues
to be considered in this section are:
• Integration of basic design with detail design
• Integration of detail design with production design & planning
• Integration of detail design with the production activities (such as cutting, forming
& welding) and the programming of the automated facilities
• Integration of production planning with the control of supplies & outsourcing (sub-
contracted services and equipment purchasing)
In an ideal situation, one could conceive a computer system implementing the com-
plete flow-chart shown in Figure 2. In practice, it implies the integration (or just the in-
terfacing) of various specialised computer programmes (CAD, CAE, logistics, etc.)
and, sometimes, manual procedures.
The concept of “assembly” yard is becoming reality with the major European ship-
yards. In this scheme the shipyard is subcontracting major parts of the outfitting work
like total turnkeys of different ship spaces. These can be even engine rooms or large
cabin areas or restaurants. In these areas everything, except the steel-work, is done
by subcontracting companies. This leaves only the coordination role to the shipyard.
This fact sets new requirements for design systems, material and project management
systems. Efficient coordination is the key factor for successful new-building.
Actually, there are no general or specific tools and methods available, which could be
used throughout the different design and engineering phases; even within each phase
many different systems are used, often without proper links and coordination.
There are generally several computer systems at shipyards and within the industry
serving shipping companies and shipyards. They are, however, typically tailor-made
systems and they lack integration. Product data is spread out between different sys-
tems and companies without common product model; thus the data in each system
lives its own life. Coordination takes time and, in most cases, it is effective only during
the building and installation phase, sometimes leading to rather costly solutions.

7.1 Integration of basic design with detail design

In the basic design all the major characteristics of the new-building such as room ar-
rangements, system diagrams etc. are accurately defined. Specifications state clearly,
what to be included in the detail design. Today the individual designers pick this infor-
mation from the basic design drawings. The result is therefore depending on careful-
ness and skills of each person reading the documents.
Today in some 3D design systems it is possible to create intelligent system schemes,
where the information on armatures, materials and identification data are stored into a
database to be used in the detail phase. This way it is possible to eliminate major part
of the human errors.
This all must be also linked to the procurement and handling of materials. It is a com-
plicated formula, because basic design needs equipment information, which is in the
other hand needs purchase decisions. Procurement needs technical handling and de-
livery times of material compared to the building philosophy dictate the schedules of
purchases. Considering that the major part of the ship’s price consists of materials
bills, it is clear that this will be of major importance in the systems development of the
future.

AIPS study Page 61 June 2000

7.2 Integration of detail design with the production activities
The integration of the design with the production tools is already today’s reality. 3D
design gives the possibility to have all kind of geometric or material data to be proc-
essed for the production machinery. Typically today the plate cutting information, pipe
length cutting and bending information is directly fed by wire to the production units.

7.3 Integration of production planning

The function of production planning is to make sure that all the conditions of success-
ful ship manufacturing are fulfilled. This means, that there will be a building place, suf-
ficient human resources, tools, materials and manufacturing drawings in the right
place at the right time. This includes also the subcontractor coordination.
The shipyards have various production management systems in use today, but most
of them have deficiencies like subcontracting or project follow-up tools.
Coordination of material flow is one of the major tasks also in production planning.
This starts already before the ship contract, when the decisions in the major ship
equipment (like main engines) are done. This reflects to the production scheduling and
that way to design schedules as well. The turnkey deliveries belong also to this cate-
gory as well. Especially the follow-up of subcontractors should be integrated very
tightly to shipyard’s own management systems.
The construction of a ship is a huge network of activities, where the dependencies be-
tween different tasks are massive and complicated. However, this is a process, which
in spite of the differences in ships remains largely the same from new-building to new-
building. With good reason it is reasonable to think, that this can be described accu-
rately enough in order to develop suitable software.
Virtual shipyard (simulation of the building process) can be the tool of the future for the
integration and management of the real shipyard. Similar tools are already used in
automotive industry. This shipyard model should be integrated together with a ship
product model, which contains all the ship- related information in the same database.
These two combined should provide powerful tools to coordinate the network of sup-
pliers, sub-contractors and shipyard resources.

7.4 Product model

In today’s market situation shipyards as well as shipping companies are concentrating
on their core business and outsourcing most of the support functions. This serves re-
ducing the costs and balancing the use of capacity in the fluctuating market. Extensive
use of consultants, subcontractors and suppliers is a typical situation in shipbuilding.
The product definition becomes essential for the shipyard, ship-owner, class and the
subcontractors. Typical contract documents may initially be enough for the yard but
when all the major systems and spaces on the ship are subcontracted proper and
adequate definition of the ship at the earliest possible stage becomes of vital impor-
tance if not critical.
Coordination between the different parties must be fluent and efficient to keep the
schedule and, of course, all parties should understand the final end product in the
same way, in accordance with the ship-owner’s original plan. This is, however, quite
difficult when several different parties are involved and the end product is not exactly
as originally ordered.
To be able to serve the ship development process from the first idea up to the com-
missioning and, why not, to its operation and decommissioning, a product model is re-
quired including all the necessary information for the complete shipbuilding process. It
is self-understanding that time is an essential parameter to be included in the model
leading to a 4D product model.
DELTAMARIN Ltd, in collaboration with a major CAD vendor has worked for more
than two years with the idea of introducing a 4D model at the earliest possible design
stage [44], making it as generic as possible in order to be suitable for all the different

AIPS study Page 62 June 2000

 tasks in the shipbuilding process. The virtual reality (VR) became an essential part of
the process and today we speak of virtual mock-ups in 4D where the 4th dimension is
the project / process time.
The first VR ship models were prepared spring-summer 1998, for a passenger cruise
ship outline project. The first test case worked better than expected and the yard re-
quested a full VR model to be prepared including exterior, all public spaces, example
cabins and selected service spaces. The main issue was to visualize the design of the
exterior and the public spaces. It was easy for everyone in project meetings and pres-
entations to understand the specific and special features of for example unsymmetri-
cal cone type atrium, front bulkhead passenger balcony arrangement and similar. It
was also interesting to see how easily and quickly alternative solutions could be pre-
pared and compared during the presentations. Figure 7 below is an illustration of typi-
cal early project phase model.

Figure 7: Typical early project phase model, from [44]

Several conclusions can be drawn already today:
• The number of required man-hours in preparing a virtual model is not more than is
required for preparing typical arrangement drawings. Drawings can be extracted
directly from the 4D model.
• Visual presentation of any new idea, space or arrangement is easy and much
more efficient than with drawings, renderings or even with cartoon models.
• Presentations and common meetings with the owner, yard, architect, consultant,
subcontractor, etc. are greatly simplified. Fly-around and walk-through of the vir-
tual ship as required in the meetings is possible.
• Different alternatives can be on display at the same time and fly-around or fly-in
can be made for both.
• Minor changes can be made on the spot in the meeting concerning colours, light-
ing, furniture, as well as arrangement, structures, equipment, furniture, etc. Major
changes may require working ‘overnight’.
• Visualisation of changes and alternatives is immediate; decision-making becomes
easier and more reliable.
• Functionality of spaces can be easily checked with performance simulations in the
virtual model utilising efficient simulation solutions. These can be ro-ro deck op-
erations, or any kind of cargo operations, passenger flows, and escape simula-
tions, luggage handling, galley, catering operations and similar.
In addition, the model can be connected with a virtual navigation simulator with mod-
els of any required harbour together with the mathematical model of the ship’s ma-
noeuvring characteristics.
All this can be done already before the shipbuilding contract is signed, with one single
product model. Consistency and coordinated update of this unique model can help
avoiding a lot of typical misunderstandings and mistakes at the earliest possible stage.

AIPS study Page 63 June 2000

 A detailed, well-defined virtual reality product model as contract document (CD-ROM)
of the new-building enables a quick start for the coordination, design, procurement
and planning phase immediately after the contract is signed.
Ideally, the same model can be used for technical design as basis for architectural de-
sign, as inquiry specification (or part of it), and as yard building procedure planning
model. This reduces the risk of modifications saving both man-hours and, particularly,
lead-time.
The basic structural design could be completed in the same model and information
could be shared with the class. System diagrams could also be prepared in the model
including both system characteristics and important space reservations for ducting,
piping and cable trays. The model, complete with piping, ducting, cable trays, main
components, equipment and systems, forms the basis for turnkey contracting, detail
production planning and workshop drawings.

Figure 8: Vantage class exterior design, from [44]

DELTAMARIN prepared the first full design coordination model for the Royal Carib-
bean International “Vantage” class vessel (Figure 8). Later on detail navigation bridge
(Figure 9) and engine room (Figure 11) coordination models, both including also vir-
tual reality simulations were added.

Figure 9: Virtual bridge model, from [44]

AIPS study Page 64 June 2000

 Figure 10: Virtual kitchen model, from [44]

Figure 11: Engine room model for functional checking, from [44]

7.5 Process simulation

The virtual ship models can also as basis for process, safety, ro-ro and any kind of
simulations as required essential for a specific project.
For example, a shipyard can be modelled and the building procedures with block as-
sembly, block and grand block outfitting and dry dock building stage can be simulated,
checking critical phases, areas, material flows etc. The simulation would require the
following steps:
• A complete 4D Virtual Product Model including structure, main piping, ducting, ca-
ble trays and main components within the basic design stage is split into hull sec-
tions, blocks and main construction phases.
• A virtual shipyard with all the production lines, cranes, outfitting spaces, etc. is
modelled.
• The construction process is simulated.
The advantages of the process simulation include:
• Variations can be studied in a transparent mode.
• All parties involved can quickly understand the process and their specific part of it.

AIPS study Page 65 June 2000

 • Effect of block outfitting, required outfitting areas, use of modular construction and
turnkey supplies can be easily demonstrated.
The main benefit for the turnkey supplier is that he can get adequate technical data
and installation process description even before the contract is signed, allowing proper
planning and detail design.
Normal planning, scheduling and follow-up tools can be linked with the 4D virtual
product model and updating of schedule goes together with the model. An enhanced
systematic approach of ship new-building project can be made possible. In Figure 12
below, a first simulation of the block assembly process of a ro-ro passenger ferry by
DELTAMARIN Ltd at the Hellenic Shipyards is shown, [44].

Figure 12: Virtual simulation of the Hellenic Shipyards, GR, from [44]
Today for a passenger cruise ship the total number of design man-hours can vary up
to 100,000 man-hours (difference) depending on the level and quality of basic design.
In dollars this makes $5-10 million. The effect of using a virtual reality product model
properly from the first project stage is leading to even bigger impacts. This represents
a huge potential, taking into account that the design activity is easily as much as 10%
of the total new-building costs, and the saving effect goes through the complete build-
ing process and not just the design.

AIPS study Page 66 June 2000

8 New technologies and R&D activities
8.1 General
th
Late during the 4 FP, a certain number of maritime related thematic networks have
started operating. Some of them, namely ROBMAR, CEPS and PRODIS are directly
related with the present study. In particular CEPS has initiated a state-of-the-art report
in each of the thematic areas that it encompasses. The first conclusion of this report,
for the ‘production’ thematic areas, was presented at the Odense workshop of Feb.3-
4, 1999. These reports, as well as the raw information collected, will be available to
AIPS so that we build on top of what has been done and avoid any duplication of
work. A first idea is to analyse the CEPS and PRODIS state-of-the-art reports so as to
focus the AIPS survey on a limited number of actors who are recognised as having or
using the state-of-the-art technology in their respective fields.
JRC – ISIS is the scientific co-ordinator of the ROBMAR and participates to the activi-
ties of CEPS network. Other AIPS contributors (DELTAMARIN and IRCN) participate
to the PRODIS network. It is therefore intended not only to use the surveys of CEPS
and PRODIS but to integrate AIPS as much as possible in the activities of the above
networks.
In the recent past, a significant portion of the R&D performed in Europe, related to the
automation of shipbuilding processes, has been stimulated, co-ordinated or monitored
by various EC services, which are a considerable source of information. As what con-
cerns the up-coming FP5, the recently set-up thematic networks and the European
associations (EuroYards, COREDES etc.) are expected to play a major role in this
field.

8.2 Study on the maritime RTD activities in the member states

In February 2000, the final report of a study on behalf of the European Commission,
DG III (now DG ENTERPRISE) on the current EU member states RTD activities with
reference to shipbuilding (including marine equipment, shipping and marine re-
sources) was issued [29]. The aim of the study was to analyse the current state of
maritime-related RTD activities and the programmes within the European Union (EU),
to help identify possibilities for improved co-operation among the various programmes
and establishments, and identify specific actions to create more synergy between the
EU and/or national programmes, thereby contributing to the improvement of the com-
petitiveness of the European maritime industry. Its key objectives of this study were:
• to have an overview of the state of play of research in all the maritime industries
sectors, namely shipbuilding, including marine equipment, shipping and marine
resources;
• to propose synergies, where possible, between EU maritime R&D and national
maritime R&D in order to benefit from the context of the 5th Framework Pro-
gramme on R&D (1998-2002) in view of enhancing the competitiveness of mari-
time industries.
The results are reported as the overview on the state-of-play of maritime RTD in the
areas of shipbuilding, marine equipment, shipping and marine resources. In addition,
the overview of the information and communication technologies (ICT) research
throughout the whole maritime field is presented. The results of the extensive informa-
tion gathering exercise have also been assembled in a specially designed database.
The study outlined above was the major source of statistical information on shipbuild-
ing R&D. A statistical review reported a total of 49 programs that include 1488 RTD
projects involving 1226 contractors funded from 198 organisations. From the total of 4
RTD areas considered, the one of interest to AIPS study is that for shipbuilding, the
sectors and sub-sectors can be seen in Table 14 below. The other 3 RTD areas are
those of marine equipment, shipping, and marine resources.

AIPS study Page 67 June 2000

 Table 14: Number of projects by sectors and sub-sectors of Shipbuilding area; from
Maritime RTD Study [29]
Sector Sub-Sector Projects
Design Tools Tools for early design 41
Tools for hydrodynamic basic design 90
Tools for propulsor design 37
Tools for structural behaviour 98
Design Methods Standardisation 26
Application of new materials 17
Design for safety 58
Risk assessment tools 15
Production (generic elements of Process integration 21
the production process) QA and QC methods 22
Production/construction techno- Automation and robotisation 10
logies Cutting and joining methods 6
Production planning 19
Ship Systems and Equipment General technological development 44
Modularisation and standardisation 3
Optimisation of power generation, propulsion 46
systems and other equipment
Scrapping of Ships Life cycle and maintenance assessment 8
Commercial developments

Shipbuilding accounted for 3 programmes including 545 RTD projects, the breakdown
of which (per sector and sub-sector of the shipbuilding area) is also presented in Table
14 above. The following conclusions can be drawn:
• The vast majority (382) of the shipbuilding projects have to do with design tools or
methods
• Only 10 projects have been reported on automation / robotisation
• Some 66 of the reported projects are somehow related to integration: 21 on proc-
ess integration, 26 on standarisation and 19 on production planning

8.3 Recent conferences on shipbuilding IT applications

Papers published or presented in conferences related to the shipbuilding process
automation and integration are good indicators of the current trends in shipbuilding
R&D. There have been three such conferences recently, one in Japan in 1998, one in
US (ICCAS '99) and one in Europe (COMPIT 2000).
8.3.1 Application of IT to Shipbuilding and Shipping Industries
The symposium on "Application of Information Technology to Shipbuilding and Ship-
ping Industries", organised by the Information Technology Committee of the Society of
Naval Architects of Japan, was held in Tokyo in December 1998.
Its scope was to exchange information among the shipping industry, shipbuilding in-
dustry, marine machinery/equipment industry and classification society, to explore the
future direction of development and potential collaboration under the emerging busi-
ness environment, particularly rapid progress of information technology and telecom-
munications.
The history of the collaborative development of CIM in Japan was presented. Accord-
ing to the survey on how each shipyard evaluate the current status and effectiveness
of their own CIM system, the level so far attained was reported about 70 % relative to
the aims. The savings of the man-hour in design was estimated about 20%, and about
30% in construction as compared to 1989. It was pointed out that among many merits
brought about by CIM application the greatest merit by CIM application seems to
come from easier optimisation of production process, planning, etc. The papers most
relevant to AIPS are presented below:

AIPS study Page 68 June 2000

 The State of Art of CIM for Shipbuilding in Shipyards in Japan, by Ken Ito (Mitsu-
bishi Heavy Industries, Ltd) and Tomoyoshi Tanabe (Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd);
Major Japanese shipbuilders have made co-operative work of establishing the concept
of CIM for Shipbuilding and developing the framework of the CIM for these 10 years.
Each shipyard has developed own CIM step by step, applying the results of the pro-
jects. Overview of the history of the CIM projects is presented, and the evaluations of
the CIM developed by each shipyard are made. Issues for the future of the shipbuild-
ing industries are discussed.
Overview of an Advanced CIM (ACIM) for Shipbuilding by Toshiyuki Amemiya and
Masahiro Sonda;
The ACIM project has been launched in 1997 with plan for three years under the aus-
pice of Ship and Ocean Foundation. The aim of ACIM is to enhance the current CIM
system through the intensive usage of advancing information technology as well as
many assets obtained from previous CIM projects, and put the advanced CIM into
practical use. In the ACIM project, we are trying to enable efficient and flexible collabo-
rative engineering for shipbuilding on the basis of the knowledge sharing between
multiple disciplines by developing practical product/process model and promoting
software integration environment that enables systems and engineers working to-
gether on the networks.
IT for Better Collaboration and Cooperation among Shipbuilding and Marine
Machinery / Equipment Industries by Norio Hata and Hiroshi Tabuchi;
This paper introduces the outline of three industry wide projects on information ex-
change among shipping, shipbuilding and marine machinery/ equipment companies
as well as a ship classification society. The first project named as "Senpaku (Ship)
CALS project" consists a series of experiments for the purpose of establishing core
technology for electronic exchange of technical information for realizing "sharing of
technical information using computer network" especially among shipbuilders, ship
owners and ship classification societies. The second and the third projects, named as
"Senpaku EC project" and "Zohaku (Shipyards and Marine parts suppliers) Web pro-
ject" respectively, extend their scope of information exchange to technical data be-
tween shipbuilders and ship machinery/equipment suppliers. It is pointed out in this
paper that recent information technology widely popularized as well as rapidly ad-
vanced such like as PC and WWW seems to realize better collaboration and coopera-
tion near future among those parties involved in the projects. For real success, how-
ever, it is noted that many efforts should also be paid in standardization of various
data to be exchanged.
8.3.2 ICCAS '99
The 10th International Conference on Computer Applications in Shipbuilding (ICCAS
'99) held in June 1999 by MIT Sea Grant College Program, Cambridge Massachu-
setts, with the scope to: review the operational experience with existing computer ap-
plications in the building of ships and offshore structures, and look toward emerging
advances in information technologies that will become the basis for the next genera-
tion of shipyard computer systems.
Recognising the importance of computers and computerisation in the shipbuilding in-
dustry, this conference set out to review operational experience with existing computer
applications in the building of ships and offshore structures. It also looked towards
emerging advances in information technologies that will become the basis for the next
generation of shipyard computer systems. The subject matter of ICCAS '99 covered a
wide range of topics in computer applications to shipbuilding. Principal topics included
in the subject matter were:
- Preliminary Design: Tendering, initial design, general arrangement, cost and
work estimation; 19 papers.
- Detailed and Production Design: Structure, hull form, hydrodynamic design,
machinery, hull and outfitting designs, shell expansion, linkages with suppliers of
parts or subassemblies; 3 papers.

AIPS study Page 69 June 2000

 - Assembly and Construction: Parts manufacture, prefabrication, assembly, erec-
tion, scrapping, shipyard robotics and shop automation, parts standardization, ac-
curacy control, and assembly simulation; 13 papers.
- Inspection and Maintenance: Inspection standards, liability, surveys, life cycle
maintenance, parts and system reliability, documentation and commissioning.
- CAD/CAM/CIM Systems: Design, manufacturing, and maintenance systems;
shipbuilding CIM, hull form representation, modelling methodology, GUI, intelligent
systems, simulation based systems; 9 papers.
- Product Modelling: Product model technology, general product modelling sys-
tem, object-oriented databases, STEP, EDI; 17 papers.
- Emerging Information Technology: Virtual reality, automated design and pro-
duction systems, data and knowledge sharing, communications standards, up-
dated object technologies, computer parallelism; 3 papers.
- Operation and Management: Shipyard operation, facilities and human resources,
scheduling, production planning and optimisation, work and production flow analy-
sis, stock control, flexible production, organization, project management, concur-
rent engineering, virtual enterprise, remote production systems, block and building
strategy; 15 papers.
- Information Technology Infrastructure: System architecture, information flow
analysis, inter- and intranet applications; 6 papers.
In all, 86 papers or addresses were given and over half of these had links to AIPS top-
ics. Two important conclusions can be drawn from a first examination of the complete
program of the conference:
• The very small number of papers on robotics and automation, themes under the
Assembly and Construction topic.
• The important number of papers on product modelling, concurrent and collabora-
tive engineering, standards, data exchange etc.
This is yet another indication of the importance of the integration of the various design
phases amongst them as well as with production, scheduling and planning activities.
8.3.3 COMPIT 2000
In March 2000 the conference entitled COMPIT2000 was held in Berlin. Many of the
contributors to this conference come from academic institutions identified by this study
and all relevant papers are also included in the principal papers and authors list in An-
nex A.3.
With its strong IT orientation, this conference represented a major focus for presenting
the topics relevant to the AIPS theme and is seen as a key source of identifying the
actors and state-of-the-art of the subject. Around 50 papers were delivered, of which,
over one third addressed issues concerning the automation of shipbuilding processes
or integration of the building functions.
The principal topics included in the subject matter were:
• CAD / CAM / Robotics
• CIM / CAP
• IT standards/ Electronic data exchange/ Networking technology
• Management Information Systems / Executive Information Systems
• Artificial Intelligence
• Management / Legal / Economical aspects of IT

8.4 Recent R&D projects relevant to AIPS

8.4.1 ROWER II
Welding operations on the edge of blocks and sections of a ship in the dry-dock or in
the slipway during the final erection, especially as regards the interior of the ship, are
carried out manually. The working conditions for the operators are uncomfortable and
the related costs are high.

AIPS study Page 70 June 2000

 The development of a mobile robotic welding system to automate this phase of the
ship construction would result in the following benefits:
• increase in the productivity by a factor of 3.6 by increasing the welder's arc time in
confined spaces and the deposition rate
• reduction by 10% of the assembling lead time in the dry-dock/slipway, which is the
bottleneck of the ship production process, thus resulting in an increase of the
throughput (and of market share)
• better quality of weld execution thanks to the automated process, with reduction
from 20% to 10% of the defective welds to be reworked
• improvement in working conditions of the operators.
A realistic operating target would be to cover all the welds in the central part of large-
medium size ships, characterised by a more uniform cell shape. The ROWER II pro-
ject aims in developing a robotic welding system, at industrial prototype level, consist-
ing of:
• a legged mobile platform, to position the welding equipment inside the cell
• a platform mounted lightweight manipulator to perform fine positioning of the weld-
ing torch
• the welding equipment including power source, torch, wire feeder, etc
• a vision system to accurately measure the workspace (weld location and shape),
prior to welding
• a control console to program and supervise the system from outside the working
cell
• a system to perform Quality Control (QC) of the weld from remote.
The proposed development is the second step of an on-going BRITE-Euram project
named ROWER and having scope limited to the welding of a single type of ship cells,
those of the double bottom, and making use of a non optimal commercial manipulator
manufactured in Japan.
The ROWER II is a 3-year BRITE-EURAM project started at mid 1998. Its consortium
includes the following partners:
- Tecnomare (Italy) - coordinator
- Istituto de Automatica Industrial (Spain)
- Lund University (Sweden)
- Fincantieri (Italy)
- Astilleros Españoles (Spain)
- ENVC (Portugal)
- Karlskronavarvet (Sweden).
8.4.2 SNAKE
Multi-Flexible Light Weight Robotic Manipulator (Snake Robot) for One-Of-A Kind and
Small Batch Industries of the Future (SNAKE)
IMS (Intelligent Manufacturing Systems) project #99005
Innovative application of various technologies is needed to move shipbuilding and
similar heavy industries producing one-of-a-kind or small batch products (discrete
manufacturers) into a new era to meet changing national and global demands. This
project is one such effort which will accomplish flexible automation of building proc-
esses in large and heavy structures such as ship sections, bridge elements etc. An
automated, robotic system that can reach into long, narrow chambers with complex
geometry and automatically perform costly and environmentally undesirable welding,
cleaning, and painting tasks is proposed.
More details can be found in: http://www.ims.org/index2.htm
8.4.3 FANTASTIC
Functional Design and optimisation of ship hull forms, project G3RD-CT-1999-00096.

AIPS study Page 71 June 2000

 Today's ship design processes still follow a "trial and error" methodology unsuitable to
cope with this market's growing demand. Considering this as a critical limitation to
shipyard's competitiveness, major players of the European shipbuilding community
contribute their expertise so as to significantly improve their design approach. Focus-
ing on geometric modelling and hydrodynamic analysis as the two decisive compo-
nents, a new "functional design" process will be introduced allowing the efficient gen-
eration, systematic variation, effective flow analysis and rational evaluation of ship hull
forms. Aiming at hull form optimisation at both the early and the refined design stage,
innovative parametric modelling technique will be developed, established numerical
simulation methods will be enhanced and existing optimisation procedures will be
supplied. An open and modular system integrating all necessary tools will be imple-
mented and applied at model basins and shipyards.
This is a 36 month long GROWTH project, started early in 2000, coordinated by
FINCANTIERI S.p.A. with the participation of CETENA S.p.A., BAZAN yards, NAPA
Oy, and other important EU companies and academia.
8.4.4 DOCKWELDER
DOCKWELDER is a recently submitted GROWTH project, coordinated by Odense
Steel Shipyard (DK) with the participation of FINCANTIERI (I), AMROSE and MIP
(DK), APS (D) and CYBERNETIX (F).

The main objective of the project is to increase competitiveness in European ship-

building by automating 30% of the welding tasks in the dock area and thus raising the
productivity by 10%. In addition, the project aims to improve the working conditions,
safety and health of the welders in the ship erection area.
The technical objectives are:
• Establishing an overview of welding automation aspects in the ship erection area,
• Develop a flexible manipulator for welding in closed ship hull structures and dem-
onstrate this in a shipbuilding environment,
• Develop and integrate a motion planning and control system,
• Develop and integrate a process control system being able to manage the signifi-
cant welding gaps in the ship erection area.
The proposed concept is illustrated in Figure 13 and Figure 14 below.

Figure 13: Simulation of the DOCKWELDER concept - source OSS

AIPS study Page 72 June 2000

 Figure 14: Simulation of the DOCKWELDER concept - source OSS

8.4.5 CEPS
Competitive Engineering and Production in Shipbuilding (CEPS) [7] is a BRITE /
GROWTH type 1 thematic network. It deals with the following thematic areas:
Design Process - Modularisation - Standardisation
• Tools for early design procedures
• Tools for hydro-mechanical basic design
• Propulsion design tools
• Tools for structural behaviour
• Standardisation of components
• Standardisation of operational areas
Production Efficiency and I&C Technology
• General production technologies
• QA/QC methods and tools
• New processes & materials
• CIM and logistics
New Materials
New processes & materials
Improvement of Integration
• Concurrent Engineering & Multi-Site Production
• Application of Information & Communication Technologies
Most major EU shipyards and relevant RTD institutes or academia are members of
CEPS. It is coordinated by the Chantiers de l’Atlantique (CAT). More information can
be found in:
http://www.sts.tu-harburg.de/mareval/Mar_work/marwork.html
8.4.6 ROBMAR
Robotics for the Maritime industries (ROBMAR) [8] is a type 2 thematic network; that
is it formed from relevant on-going BRITE / GROWTH projects. It started its activities
in Dec. 1998 with the following objectives:
• Avoid duplicating R&D work in the frame of the on-going BRITE projects;

AIPS study Page 73 June 2000

 • Investigate on the choice, adaptation or development of common architectures;
• Investigate on the feasibility of modular, open architectures and common core
components;
• Exchange information on the robotic & handling technologies in shipbuilding and
other maritime applications and generate new synergies and ideas;
• Transfer of technologies from the technology intensive (i.e. offshore, deep-sea
etc.) to the labour intensive areas (shipbuilding, vessel inspection etc.) of the mari-
time industry.
The projects forming the ROBMAR network are well suited for pursuing the above ob-
jectives. They are representative of three different maritime applications:
1. Miniature ROV for inspection and gauging (ROTIS);
2. Robot for hull and top-side cleaning (OCTOPUS)) and
3. Mobile robot welding system (ROWER-2)
DOCKWELDER as well as AURORA (another GROWTH project on the underwater
ship hull cleaning) will join the network as soon as they get started.
ROBMAR cross-links the partners of the participating projects. It intends organising at
least two specialised workshops and maintains active links with other thematic net-
works like CEPS (Competitive Engineering & Production in Shipbuilding – IMT net-
work) and ICIMS NoE (Intelligent Control and Integrated Manufacturing Systems –
ESPRIT network). It is be open both towards new projects and towards new European
or national networks and similar initiatives.
The ROBMAR network is co-ordinated by TECNOMARE, while JRC acts as scientific
coordinator.
8.4.7 VRSHIPS-ROPAX 2000
The “Virtual Ship – ROPAX 2000” is a technology platform proposal in theframe of the
GROWTH program, KA #3 (marine technologies)
In keeping Europe’s competitive edge against word-wide competition, one of the main
challenges to be addressed by the European Maritime Industries is to follow-up the
successful pattern introduced by other major European industries, particularly the
aerospace industry, and to effectively integrate IT into the ship’s life cycle process.
Consolidation, mutual co-operation and rationalised effort to utilise technologies to
their greatest effect can only strengthen European shipbuilding industry. The VRSHIP-
ROPAX 2000 focuses on integrating current effort dispersed throughout Europe to
provide a standardised platform upon which a variety of maritime industries can func-
tion. It will eventually help European maritime industries to:
• Maintain and improve their position against word-wide competition by improving
their knowledge and
• Technological skills;
• Combine competitiveness/profitability with safety and environmental protection;
• Look at technology and innovation as the main way to survive in the global inter-
national market.
The resulting platform is expected to provide short and medium term benefit to Euro-
pean ship operators, regulatory bodies and shipbuilders and longer term benefits to
the maritime industry as a whole through the embedding of high technology in the very
fabric of designing, building and operating the ships of the future. In particular, the pro-
ject aims to integrate and simulate critical technologies of ship systems to ensure safe
and reliable transportation of goods and people. Critical technologies addressing de-
velopment of areas such as powering and propulsion systems, outfitting, internal ar-
rangement, systems configuration, hull form design, hydromechanics and structural
analyses are already receiving attention from across the spectrum of the maritime in-
dustry. This necessitates that due attention is paid and concerted effort expended in
the conception and development of an integrated platform to allow for systematic inte-
gration, management and testing of the various technologies to ensure overall design

AIPS study Page 74 June 2000

 optimisation and product performance, while addressing all the life phases of the ship
including design, production, operation and disposal.
To achieve its aim VRSHIPS-ROPAX 2000 will employ state of the art methods from
various research areas to conduct the work. These include database meddler archi-
tecture, knowledge sharing initiatives, collaborative and virtual design environments.
This will require development of database systems, coordination and communication
mechanisms and applications of standards such as STEP and CORBA to a large-
scale engineering project. VRSHIPS-ROPAX 2000 will also address the need to en-
sure ship safety, starting at an early stage in the design process. It will do this by inte-
grating design and simulation tools, which individually already have a certain predic-
tive power into a much more potent whole, which, in addition, will enable the visualisa-
tion of the consequences of design decisions. Though the virtual platform will be ge-
neric the focus of the ship platform will be on a ROPAX, as awareness of safety prob-
lems in this area is at a high level after the Estonia and Herald of Free Enterprise
tragedies. The VRSHIPS-ROPAX 2000 proposal relates directly to two of the main
nd
points reflected in the EU’s Council Resolution of 22 December 1994 on the safety of
roll-on/roll-off passenger ferries. It will enable intact and damage stability requirements
to be more easily met by simulating a ship in various sea conditions, and it will allow
the simultaneous design of optimum evacuation routes and the evacuation procedures
which utilise these routes.
Thus the project will deliver:
• An integrated virtual platform prototype system.
• Software simulation tools and virtual models of the ship system.
• An integrative architecture for critical ship technologies.
• A virtual platform for real time and a ship platform for physical performance
evaluation.
The consortium consists of 48 partners from 12 countries, including 9 in industries, 19
companies, 9 RTD establishments and 8 academia.
Understanding of the wide-ranging and central role of the project can be readily real-
ised by reference to the thematic network SAFER EURORO Cluster (Appendix A) and
the direct links with the Maritime Industry's R&D master plan explained therein.
VRSHIPS-ROPAX 2000 is the integrative platform that "pools" together advanced
technological tools to assess performance of a ship system from first principles and
thus help amass experiential information and insight. It will provide not only a platform
of ship system critical technologies but also a generic virtual platform for any ship
type. The project supports the European maritime industries in:
• Maintaining adequate strategic control over technological developments in ship-
building and shipping operation.
• Adapting and integrating new technological developments in other advanced
branches of the European industry, particularly aerospace and information tech-
nology.
• Exploiting European ‘know-how’ and European maritime industry’s worldwide
leadership in ship design and ship operation supporting services.
• Further improving the ship design and ship operation process by use of virtual
modelling tools, enabling the simulation of ship’s ‘life cycle’ from the initial concep-
tion, the design, production and finally operation under normal and extreme
(emergency) conditions, with clear impact on ship’s economy, efficiency, safety
and protection of human lives and of physical environment.
As an example of the potential contribution from the project, the design of a 50 m GRP
mine hunter can take 4,000 hours of conceptual design, 40,000 hours during the defi-
nition phase and 400,000 hours in the detail design phase. It could be argued that
savings of up to 1/3 in the definition phase and 1/4 or 1/5 in the detailed design phase.
The final results would be of a better quality in any case, but just considering the
above 0.5 M€ could be easily saved in a project of this size.

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8.5 Shipbuilding automation related R&D
The fact that only 10 projects reported for the shipyard automation / robotisation by the
maritime RTD study reflects essentially two things:
• The shipyards cannot finance nor can they be the driving force for long-term R&D
on robotics or automation.
• The fact that, despite some notable (and very expensive) exceptions in some hi-
tech applications (like space robotics), the relevant technologies are not yet ma-
tures for promising any practical industrial application.
This is consistent also with the analysis of the papers presented at the major interna-
tional conferences relative to the AIPS study.
A notable exception to the above is OSS (Odense Steel Shipyard); it is the only EU
shipyard that invests on long-term RTD concerning robotics for one-of-a-kind opera-
tions. In fact, OSS has participated actively in many such projects like the most recent
SNAKE and DOCKWELDER.

8.6 Integration related R&D

The number of European or national RTD projects as well as the number of papers
presented at the major AIPS relevant conferences, related to integration is quite im-
portant. On top of that, there is an important RTD activity done by private companies
and major CAD vendors, which, due to the associated commercial interests, is pro-
prietary and not sufficiently well documented.
We note that the areas that are covered better in terms of performed RTD are those
of:
• Integrating ship design with production design and planning
• Data exchange
• Concurrent engineering
• Virtual enterprise
• Integrating the various ship design activities - standards
On the contrary, RTD on CIM and automated facilities programming integration is not
as well covered. This might reflect the fact that interfacing CAD data with CAM equip-
ment is considered a rather consolidated straightforward procedure not needing any
further R&D.

8.7 The impact of novel production technologies

There is a number of novel production technologies, which are either being introduced
or are considered for future use by the major EU yards. They include mainly:
• Laser technologies for cutting and welding
• New materials (aluminium, composite or sandwich)
• New bonding techniques
These technologies alone cannot change significantly the shipbuilding industry. Never-
theless, the specialised facilities and know-how required for most of these processes,
combined with the introduction of new vessel concepts could, under certain circum-
stances, act as a catalyst for the transformation of the EU yards to the virtual shipyard
and the network of technology intensive enterprises / suppliers of tomorrow.
The necessary circumstances quoted above have to do with the development and de-
ployment of the necessary tools, infrastructure and mentality for the integration of the
design and production activities around the product model, in the context of the virtual
shipyard concept (see section 7).

8.8 Conclusion and recommendations on AIPS related R&D

The 3 major conferences during the last 3 years (Tokyo 98, ICCAS 99 and COMPIT
2000) as well as the BMT maritime RTD study indicated a scarce RTD effort in robot-

AIPS study Page 76 June 2000

 ics & automation. They indicated an important effort on integration issues like: product
model, standards, concurrent engineering and data exchange. These facts confirm:
• The importance of integration at short and medium term: Shipyards and other
players of the sector are conscious of this fact and are already investing in this di-
rection.
• The reluctance of the shipyards and other maritime RTD institutions to finance (or
be the driving force) for any long-term RTD activities on automation and robotics
for one-of-a-kind processes.
In what regards integration, on top of the ongoing RTD effort, there is a potential for
synergy and further cooperation between:
• Major EU yards approaching integration
• Off-shore, naval and commercial shipbuilding
• EU, national and regional shipbuilding clusters on the promotion of EDI and E-
commerce.
EC, in cooperation with the relevant associations and national bodies, could enhance
the efforts of EU shipbuilding industries by:
• Identify and define the stages of the different fields of integration in shipbuilding
(follow-up of the present study)
• Monitor and benchmark the progress of integration of the EU shipbuilding industry
In what concerns the further automation / robotisation of the production processes, it is
evident that shipyards, for the reasons that have been discussed in the previous sec-
tions, cannot invest nor can they be the driving force in any long-term R&D activities.
Nevertheless, on the long run, in order for shipbuilding to become a technology inten-
sive, rather than work intensive sector, tedious, unhealthy and dangerous work must
inevitably be robotised. Such long-term R&D is therefore necessary if shipbuilding is to
become a technology intensive rather than a work-intensive industrial sector.
EC, along with national authorities and shipbuilder’s associations must find alternative
ways to encourage basic and long-term R&D and stimulate the technology transfer
from other high tech applications, in order to permit the introduction of all the neces-
sary technologies for the efficient robotisation / automation of the one-of-a-kind opera-
tions in shipbuilding, construction and other heavy “one-of-a-kind” industries. Such
ways may include:
• Network relevant R&D institutes, academia, shipyards, other one-of-a-kind indus-
tries and automation equipment providers.
• Stimulate trans-sector activities regarding the application of autonomous robotic
systems (service robots operating in remote, dangerous or unhealthy environ-
ments).
• Financing of basic and long-term R&D of industrial relevance, even without evi-
dent economic returns.

AIPS study Page 77 June 2000

9 Competitiveness of EU shipbuilding
Even if the effects of integration, process automation and robotisation on the produc-
tivity are not questionable, their effects on competitiveness are not as clear. Especially
in what concerns the competitiveness vis-à-vis their Far Eastern counterparts the
situation is as follows:

9.1 Effects of automation

Further automation of the shipbuilding productive processes cannot have significant
economic returns but at medium / long term, because:
• It involves considerable amount of basic R&D activities, which cannot be per-
formed, financed or owned by individual shipyards
• Basic technologies and solutions from such rather basic R&D activities, are bound
to proliferate much faster than the time needed to be implemented and give tangi-
ble economic return.
• Even where process automation / mechanisation looks promising at short term
(i.e. painting and coating), in the modern global economic and IT context, it cannot
guarantee but a very brief competitive edge.
Investing in automation, in whatever form and however necessary it might be, cannot,
by itself, improve the competitiveness of the EU shipbuilding industry nor can it secure
its present market niche.
It must be pointed out that, as soon as the basic automation technologies become
available, Korean (and in the future also the Chinese) shipyards are in a much better
position to implement these technologies than their EU counterparts. There are two
basic reasons for that:
• The current market niche of the Far Eastern shipyards is much more suitable to
automation improvements than the EU market niche.
• Far Eastern shipyards follow quite closely the international R&D activities and al-
ready have a lot of agreements with top EU shipyards and technology providers.
Although it was not possible to visit, in the frame of the AIPS study, any Korean ship-
yard, all the information we have point out that they have modern installations and are
keen and capable of applying any new promising technology.

9.2 Effects of integration

Investments on integration are bound to affect the productivity of the shipyards in a
much more direct way than investments on automation of any single process. Under
some conditions, its effect on competitiveness can be quite significant for the individ-
ual yard as well as for the EU shipbuilding as a whole. More in particular:
• The erection of large cruise vessels, fast ferries etc, typical of what are still con-
sidered to be EU market niches, are much more apt to profit from an integrated,
concurrent engineering and production environment than tankers, bulk carriers
etc.
• Although the required investment for introducing such an environment to a particu-
lar shipyard is not as heavy (in fact much of the development cost is shared and
buffered through the big CAD vendors), its implementation requires radical struc-
tural, organisational and mentality changes. These changes cannot be imple-
mented but gradually, they are heavily custom / application driven, they can be
quite long to implement and, if wrong decisions are taken at the beginning, they
can be quite risky. As a consequence, applied pioneer solutions cannot be copied
or transferred as easily and the effects of any successful innovative application
are bound to have a longer lasting effect.

AIPS study Page 78 June 2000

 Nevertheless, at medium / long term, production integration alone cannot assure any
competitive edge over the Far Eastern shipyards nor can it secure the current market
10
niche. On the contrary, there are examples of Korean shipyards that have already
established partnerships with leading CAD vendors in order to further enhance their
productivity and competitiveness and penetrate some typical EU market niches.

9.3 Considerations on the competitiveness of the EU shipyards

The competitiveness of the EU shipyards, specially vis-à-vis their Far Eastern com-
petitors, is a matter that goes far beyond the scope of the present study. Nevertheless,
we allow some considerations that can serve for further thoughts:
European shipbuilding cannot, in general, retain its actual market niches, even more
so it cannot gain the market sectors lost recently in favour of its Far-Eastern competi-
tors just by technology or R&D investments, be it on automation or on design and in-
tegration.
Instead, following the experience of other sectors, EU shipbuilding must target on its
integration in the context of a competitive and sustainable European shipping. The re-
cent developments in information and communication technologies make possible a
coherent product model type of approach, where a network of shipyards and other re-
lated industries and enterprises respond collectively to the need for a producing, main-
taining, adapting and decommissioning the fleet of vessels necessary to assure a sus-
tainable European shipping.
Ship owners and ship operators must see these virtual shipyards or better virtual ship-
making industries (i.e. networks of specialised shipyards, equipment manufacturers,
repair yards, service providers etc) as a long-standing partners, much like the way the
airlines see the big aircraft manufacturing consortia.

10
Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Ulsan shipyard is in partnership with Parametric Technolo-
gies Corporation (PTC) to develop the complete next generation shipbuilding solution [28],
an integrated shipbuilding environment

AIPS study Page 79 June 2000

10 Conclusions
10.1 Challenging environment
The over-capacity in production, mainly in the sector of merchant vessels, has caused
dramatic price reductions (from 15% to 30% over the 1998 prices) in particular for
some vessel types (tankers, VLCCs, etc.). The situation of the shipbuilding market has
accelerated the trend of EU shipyards towards building vessel types with high techni-
cal content and specialised know-how like containerships, LNG and LPG tankers,
dredgers, luxury cruise vessels and ferries.
Increasing vessel complexity means significantly less steel work (sometimes lower
than 20% of the total cost) and increasingly important design, planning and manage-
ment (it can represent over 10% of the cost of a modern passenger vessel). The very
short delivery times, imposed by the fierce competition and the rapidly evolving mar-
ket, emphasise even more the need for efficient design, planning and management.
In the past, shipyards have been largely self sufficient in all disciplines of shipbuilding
process. Nowadays however, workloads can vary significantly across various disci-
plines and the complexity of certain work requires a lot of highly skilled personnel for
limited periods of time. Due to this reason most of the advanced shipyards use exten-
sively subcontractors and total turnkey deliveries suppliers, moving rapidly towards the
concept of “assembly” yard.
Nowadays, successful, in-time, completion of complicated ships (such as modern
high-speed ferries or big passenger vessels) in a concurrent engineering and produc-
tion environment sets new challenges for the standardisation and integration of the
processes.
In a highly demanding and competitive environment, European shipyards have taken
up the challenge imposed by the modern global market economy and the particular
shipbuilding market situation and are changing fast towards:
• Increased efficiency, assuring lower costs and shorter lead-times;
• Better and safer vessels, contributing to an environmentally friendly and safe
navigation

10.2 Mechanised rather than completely automated solutions

Very high level of automation as such is not of the highest priority in the development
list of the shipyards. The nature of shipbuilding, which is one-of-a-type production with
few series-production features, makes efficient and cost-effective automation difficult.
The first part of the steel production process (marking, cutting, 2D blocks etc) is al-
ready quite well automated. The 3D block and grand-block assembly as well as the
dockside erection are very difficult to be automated or robotised; robotic technology is
not yet mature to offer economically viable solutions.
The diminishing portion of steel construction, which is technically the easiest target for
automation, makes investments on further automation of individual production proc-
esses even more questionable.
Nevertheless, the need to alleviate workers from tedious, unhealthy and dangerous
jobs will push for novel intelligent solutions also at the later stages of steel work and
outfitting. At a short / medium term, these solutions are likely to focus on intelligent
mechanisation or robotised assistance techniques. At long term, when the necessary
technology becomes mature, also these operations will inevitably be robotised.
Outfitting work is still at the beginning of the automation process. Here, it is the sub-
contractors that are likely to develop new production technologies. Automation is likely
to be developed for workshop or subcontracted activities.

AIPS study Page 80 June 2000

10.3 High priority for integration
Ship design efficiency is of vital importance to shipbuilding industry. In spite of the
considerable investments and the developments in the various design tools and meth-
ods, there is still considerable room for improvement and substantial economic return
potential. Design activities (including production planning and management) not only
constitute an important part of the total cost of the vessel project but also have a sig-
nificant impact on the other costs (production, procurement, delivery time etc).
At present, there exist a range of valid CAD, CAE, CAM, CIM and ERP tools already
deployed in the major EU yards. The major issue as what concerns the quality and ef-
ficiency of both the final product and the production (incl. design) process itself lays in
the efficient cooperative engineering and production.
In brief: at short-medium term, the major productivity gains in EU shipbuilding can be
achieved through rationalisation of work phases, good planning and integration rather
than automation. The final target is a virtual yard, operating in a cooperative / concur-
rent engineering and production context together with a network of specialised contac-
tors, suppliers. The central concept for such a context is that of the 4D product model.

10.4 Need for technology transfer and long-term R&D

Shipyards cannot invest, nor can they be the driving force in any long-term R&D activi-
ties on robotisation of one-of-a-kind processes, for the reasons that have been dis-
cussed in the previous sections. Nevertheless, in order for shipbuilding to become a
technology intensive, rather than work intensive sector, tedious, unhealthy and dan-
gerous work must inevitably be robotised.
EC, along with national authorities and shipbuilder’s associations must find ways to
encourage basic and long-term R&D in order to permit the introduction of all the nec-
essary technologies for the efficient robotisation / automation of the one-of-a-kind op-
erations in shipbuilding, construction and other heavy “one-of-a-kind” industries.

AIPS study Page 81 June 2000

Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank Lucio Sabbadini and Luciano Manzon of FINCANTIERI S.p.A. as
well as Michael Goldan of VNSI (Dutch shipbuilders association) for their useful comments.
They wish also to thank each of the members of the CESA working group on co-operation
for useful discussions and information given as well as for the unique opportunity to participate
to their fruitful meetings and visits to numerous EU shipyards.

AIPS study Page 82 June 2000

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[24] Ivan Oestvik, Dimitris Konovessis, Dracos Vassalos, A ship design blackboard sys-
tem, Proceedings, COMPIT 2000, March 29 to April 2, 2000, Potsdam - Berlin (D)
[25] J.Torroja, F.Alonso, Developments in Computer Aided Ship Design and Produc-
tion, The Royal Institution of Naval Architects, Discussion Paper W177(1999)
[26] CAD/CAM Magazine Online, The Guide to Integrated Design & Production,
http://www.cadcam-magazine.co.uk/htm/main.html
[27] Maritime Industry Information Infrastructure, http://www.marinfo.net/entry.html
[28] Parametric Technologies Corporation, Pro/ENGINEERING Shipbuilding Solutions
White Paper, communication from PTC
[29] British Maritime Technology, Cliff Funnell Associates, the Institute of Shipping Eco-
nomics and Logistics and Maritime Engineering and Technology for Transport Logis-
tics and Education, The Current Extent of Member States Maritime Research and
Technological Development (RTD) Activities, with reference to shipbuilding, in-
cluding marine equipment, shipping and marine resources, European Commis-
sion, DG Enterprise, tender III/98/12, final report, Feb. 2000
[30] Commission Européenne, Deuxième Rapport de la Commission Européenne au
Conseil des Ministres sur la Situation de la Construction Navale dans le Monde,
Bruxelles, 14.04.00
[31] Product Development and Innovation in Shipbuilding (PRODIS), BRITE – IMT type 1
thematic network, area 3B, State-of-the-Art report, Nov 1999
[32] Competitive Engineering & Production in Shipbuilding (CEPS), State-of-the-Art re-
port, Thematic area 7: General Production Technology, May 1999
[33] Competitive Engineering & Production in Shipbuilding (CEPS), State-of-the-Art re-
port, Thematic area 8: QA / QC concepts & methods, May 1999
[34] Competitive Engineering & Production in Shipbuilding (CEPS), State-of-the-Art re-
port, Thematic area 9: New processes & materials, May 1999
[35] Competitive Engineering & Production in Shipbuilding (CEPS), State-of-the-Art re-
port, Thematic area 10: CIM & logistics in shipbuilding, May 1999
[36] Tatsuo Miyazaki, Yoshio Nakashima, Hiroshi Ookubo, Kenichi Hebaru, Yasunori No-
borikawa, Kazuo Ootsuka, Kunio Miyawaki, Tsuneto Mori, Toshiaki Shinohara, Yukio
Saito and Hidetoshi Matsumoto, NC Painting Robot for Shipbuilding, proceedings
ICCAS’99
[37] Laser welding in Ship Construction, Project summary report TWI, L-SHIP/PSG(95)
16 April 1995
[38] .Lloyds Register of Shipping, Guidelines for the Approval of CO2 Laser Welding,
March 1997
[39] Welding Procedure Specification for Laser Beam Welding, BS EN ISO 9956-11
1996
[40] DIN 2310, Thermal cutting, parts 1 to 6

AIPS study Page 84 June 2000

[41] House DS, Hilton PA, TWI Members Report, A cutting Process Comparison, May
1997
[42] Shiga C., Trends in steel for shipbuilding - the growing use of advanced steel
IIW Shipbuilding Seminar Odense April 1996
[43] F Roland, Laser welding in shipbuilding, Convergent Energy Focal Spot Seminar
Orlando, US, March 1998
[44] M.Kanerva, e.a., The future of ship design, DELTAMARIN Ltd, Raisio, Finland, 1999

AIPS study Page 85 June 2000

List of Figures
Figure 1: Shipbuilding production process flow ..................................................................32
Figure 2: Information flow across the shipbuilding activities ...............................................34
Figure 3: Process flow at a typical automated pipe shop....................................................39
Figure 4: Usual means for handling loads...........................................................................42
Figure 5: Non-supervised manipulating system ..................................................................48
Figure 6: Supervised manipulating system .........................................................................49
Figure 7: Typical early project phase model, from [44] .......................................................63
Figure 8: Vantage class exterior design, from [44] .............................................................64
Figure 9: Virtual bridge model, from [44].............................................................................64
Figure 10: Virtual kitchen model, from [44] ...........................................................................65
Figure 11: Engine room model for functional checking, from [44] ........................................65
Figure 12: Virtual simulation of the Hellenic Shipyards, GR, from [44].................................66
Figure 13: Simulation of the DOCKWELDER concept - source OSS...................................72
Figure 14: Simulation of the DOCKWELDER concept - source OSS...................................73

AIPS study Page 86 June 2000

Annexes
A.1 External subcontractors to the AIPS study
A.2 Shipyards and other organisations contacted
A.3 COMPIT 2000 – programme
A.4 The Dutch collaborative experience
A.5 The CESA working group on cooperation

AIPS study Page 87 June 2000

A.1 External subcontractors to the AIPS study
The following companies (in parenthesis the names of the persons responsible for
each contribution) have contributed as subcontractors of JRC to the AIPS study:
1. IMC Associates (Graham Clarke) UK
2. DELTAMARIN Ltd (Matti Lietepohja) Finland
3. Renaissance Shipping (Willy Patzwahl) Germany
4. MT Consultants (Marios Tseriotis) Greece
5. IRCN (Guy Babaud) France
The business briefs and/or CVs of the above experts as well as their expected
contributions can be found in [2]. Contracts have been stipulated with JRC following
the aprooval by DG III.D.5 of the AIPS detailled planning.
The responsibility of each subcontractor, as initially planned, in terms of countries,
processes, technologies and R&D activities, is given in the tables below:

Renaissance
Deltamarin
AIPS project

I.R.C.N.
countries
J.R.C.

I.M.C.

M.T.
Denmark x
Finland x
Sweeded x
Norway x
UK & Ireland x
Germany x
Poland x
France x
Spain x
Portugal x
Netherlands x
Italy x
Greece x
Croatia x
Romania x
Cyprus x
Ukraina x

AIPS study Page 88 June 2000

 Renaissance
Deltamarin
AIPS project

I.R.C.N.
processes

J.R.C.

I.M.C.

M.T.
Automation
Production planning x
Fabrication x
3D shape sub-blocks
Assembly x
Erection
Finishing - outfitting x

Integration
Standards & modularity
Pre-design <-> Basic design x
Basic <-> detail design x x
Design <-> Production
Plann. & Supplies x
Outsourcing

Renaissance
Deltamarin
AIPS project

I.R.C.N.
technology
J.R.C.

I.M.C.

M.T.
Engineering
CAD / CAE tools x
New designs & materials x

Production
Steel flow handling
Cutting
Welding x
Flexible manufacturing x
Robotics x
Assembling
Planning x

Other
Warehouse
Outsourcing management

AIPS study Page 89 June 2000

 Renaissance
Deltamarin
AIPS project

I.R.C.N.
R&D

J.R.C.

I.M.C.

M.T.
Thematic networks
CEPS x x
PRODIS x x
ROBMAR x

EC sponsored programs
DG III x x
DG VII x x
DG XII x
DG XIII x

Other
Shipyards x x x
Universities / Institutes x x x
Other (equip. manuf. etc) x x x

The above planning has been, in general, respected. The contribution of each of the
above subcontractors is given integrally as separate reports. The contribution of JRC
includes the contributions of JRC-ISIS (F.Andritsos) and JRC-IAM (J. Perez-Prat).

AIPS study Page 90 June 2000

A.2 Shipyards and other organisations contacted
This is a non-exhaustive list of the shipyards, industries, academia or other institutions
have been visited, interviwed or contacted in the frame of the AIPS study (ASS:
assossiation, SHY: shipyard, RTD: research institute or academia, SU: suppliers,
GOV: ministry or governmental organisation), OTH: other (shipping, engineering etc).

Company Type Place Country

ACLUNAGA (Cluster) ASS Spain
ADIMDE – Shipbuilders & Aux. Industries SU Spain
AEDIMAR - Auxiliary Equipment SU Spain
AESA Astano SHY Ferol Spain
AESA Sestao SHY Bilbao Spain
AESA Sevilla SHY Sevilla Spain
AKER FINNYARDS SHY Rauma Finland
Astilleros de Huelva SH Huelva Spain
Astilleros de Pasaia SH Pasaia Spain
Barreras SHY Vigo Spain
BMEC – British Marine Equipment Council ASS UK
BMT - British Maritime Technology RTD UK
Central Consulting Group SU Groningen Netherland
Central Industry Group SU Groningen Netherland
Central Staal SU Groningen Netherland
Chantiers de l’Atlantique (CAT) SHY St. Nazaire France
COAPROA - Purchasing Association ASS Spain
CS&A OTH Pireaus Greece
DAEWOO Mangalia Heavy Industry S. A SHY Mangalia Romania
Damen SHY Gorinchem Netherland
EC – DG ENTERPRISE GOV Brussels Belgium
EC – DG RTD GOV Brussels Belgium
EC – DG TREN GOV Brussels Belgium
Elefsis shipyard SHY Elefsis Greece
Estaleiros Navais de Viana do Castelo SHY Portugal
FINCANTIERI S.p.A. SHY Marghera Italy
FINCANTIERI S.p.A. SHY Monfalcone Italy
Foro Maritimo Vasco - Maritime Cluster ASS Spain
Freire SHY Vigo Spain
Gerencia del Sector Naval - Ministry of Industry GOV Spain
Hellenic Shipyards SHY Skaramagka Greece
Hovaldswerke Deutsche Werft SHY Kiel Germany
IHC Holland Beaver Dredgers SHY Sliedrecht Netherland
IHC Holland Dredgers SHY Kinderdijk Netherland
IHC Holland NUBE & Staal SU Kinderdijk Netherland
Kockums AB Karlskronavarvet SHY Karlskrona Sweden
Kranendonk SU Tiel Netherland
Kvaerner Masa Yards Inc. SHY Turku Finland
MARSYS - suplier SU Madrid Spain
MEGATECHNIKA SHY Perama Greece
Merwede SHY Hardinxveld Netherland
Mr Cliff Funnell – contributor to BMT EC study UK
Mr George Bruce – Newcastle University dept RTD UK
for marine Technology
Mr John Craggs – First Marine Intl. Authors of OTH UK
UK Government study
Mr Tom McNamara – Southampton Institute, RTD UK
research contributor to IMC
Naval Architecture RTD Delft Netherland
NAVOL s.a. SHY Oltenita Romania

AIPS study Page 91 June 2000

 Oceanic Shipping srl OTH Constanza Romania
Odense Steel Shipyard (OSS) SHY Lindo Denmark
PYMAR - S&M Yards Association ASS Spain
SANAB s.a. SHY Braila Romania
Santierul Naval S. A Constanta SHY Constanta Romania
Santierul Naval S. A. , Galati SHY Galati Romania
SARC b.v. SU Bussum Netherland
Schelde Scheepsnieubouw SHY Schiedam Netherland
SSA - Shipbuilders and Ship repairers Associa- ASS UK
tion
TECNOMARE OTH Venice Italy
UNINAVE - Shipbuilder Association ASS Spain
Universidad de a Coruna RTD Ferrol Spain
Universidad de Madrid RTD Madrid Spain
Van der Giessen de Noord SHY Krimpen Netherland
VSNI – Dutch Shipbuilders ASS Zoetermeer Netherland
Warsaw University RTD Warsaw Poland
YACHTING CONSULT SU Eindhoven Netherland

AIPS study Page 92 June 2000

A.3 COMPIT 2000 – programme

Thursday, 30. 3. 2000

09:00 Volker Bertram, (TUHH, Ger- Knowledge-based Systems for Ship Design
many) and Ship Operation

09:30 Guus van der Bles (NCG, Ne- Integrated Shipbuilding by Concurrent Engi-
therlands), C. Dirkse (TU Delft, neering
Netherlands)

10:00 Rainer Müller, Claudia Niederee, MARINFO: The Maritime Industry Informa-
Joachim Schmidt (TUHH, Ger- tion Infrastructure
many)

10:30 Bruce Bongiorni (Univ of Michi- The Role of Directory and Trusted Third
gan, USA) Party Services in Shipbuilding Industrial
Electronic Commerce

11:00 coffee break

11:30 Uwe Langbecker, Uwe Rabien EMSA Business Cases as Draft Industry
(Germanischer Lloyd, Germany) Standards for Product Modelling

12:00 Manuel VENTURA, J. Vitoria, Implementation of STEP Translators Using

Carlos Guedes Soares (TU Lis- the Ship Hull Product Model
bon, Portugal)

12:30 Marcus Bentin, Karsten Stenzel STEP Interface between TRIBON and
(TUHH, Germany) POSEIDON

13:00 lunch

14:00 Robert Bronsart, Steffen GAU A Platform for Co-operative Inter-

(Univ Rostock, Germany) Organisational Work in Design and Produc-
tion

14:30 Clemens Odendahl (Univ. Saar- MARVIN, a Virtual Enterprise Network for the
land, Germany), Peter Wieland Maritime Domain
(DnV, Norway), E. Weitzen-
boeck (Univ. Oslo, Norway), D.
Jaramillo (GL, Germany), S.
Makris (Univ. Patras, Greece),
A. Cacho, C. Guedes Soares
(TU Lisbon, Portugal)

15:00 Pekka Koskinen (Oy EDI Mana- Level of IT in European Sea and Inland Wa-
gement, Finland) terway Ports

15:30 coffee break

16:00 Berend Bohlmann (Flensburger IT Integration in Modern Design of Ships

Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, Ger-
many)

16:30 David ROBINSON (American The Role of Information Management in Ship

Bureau of Shipping, USA) Safety

AIPS study Page 93 June 2000

17:00 Morten Lovstad, Simon Holby NAUTICUS - Knowledge Management and
Behrens-Nielsen (Det Norske Decision Support throughout the Ship's Life
Veritas, Norway) Cycle

Friday, 31. 3. 2000

08:30 Bart Lamiroy, Radu Horaud Visually Guided Robots for Ship Building
(INRIA, France), Tom Drum-
mond (Univ. Cambridge, UK),
Ole Knudsen (Odense Steel
Shipyard, Denmark)

09:00 Markus Vincze, M. Ayromlou, M. RobVision - Visually Guiding a Walking Robot

Zillich (TU Wien, Austria), through a Ship Structure
S. Galt, N. Hewer, O. Neckel-
mann, R. Waterman (PTC Ltd,
UK), A. Gasteratos, R. Marti-
notti, G. Sandini (Univ Genova,
Italy), C. Gramkow
(Odense Steel Shipyard, Den-
mark), S. Hoffgaard, O. Madsen
(Aalborg Univ, Denmark)

09:30 Sjoerd Hengst, R.J.J.F. Takken Robotising in the Dutch Shipbuilding Industry
(TU Delft, Netherlands)

10:00 Fivos Andritsos (JRC, Italy) Integration and Robot Autonomy: Key Tech-
nologies for Competitive Shipbuilding

10:30 coffee break

11:00 Thomas Stidsen, Jens Clausen Large Steel Plate Storage Optimization
(Danish Technical University,
Denmark)

11:30 Marco Cremon (Fincantieri, I- From Hull Design to Production:

taly) Production Planning, Hierarchical Bill of Ma-
terials and Workshop Documents

12:00 Jong Gye Shin, C.H.Ryu, Simulation-Based Productivity Analysis for a

S.J.Sohn, J.H.Lee, W.D.Kim Multi-layered Design of an Integrated Auto-
(Seoul National Univ. Korea) mated Line Heating System

12:30 Henrik Clausen (Danish Techni- Numerical Method for Plate Forming by Line
cal Univ., Denmark) Heating

13:00 lunch

14:00 Jens-Herman Jorde The Synthetic Lines Plan - An Aid in the Pre-
(Bergen College, Norway) liminary Design Phase

14:30 Antonio Rodriguez, M.Vivo, A. New Tools for Hull Surface Modeling
Vinacua (PT Cataluna, Spain)

15:00 Miroslav Gerigk (TU Gdansk, Artificial Intelligence in Guiding Ship Subdivi-
Poland) sion for Safety

AIPS study Page 94 June 2000

15:30 coffee break

16:00 Andreas Friis-Hansen Influence Diagrams for Optimal Maintenance

(Danish Technical University, Planning
Denmark)

16:30 Hugo Grimmelius (TU Delft, Ne- The Use of First Principle Modelling for Faulty
therlands) Behaviour Prediction in the Design Stage

17:00 Pietrzykowski, T. Dziedzic, Knowledge-Based System for Evaluation of

Janusz Uriasz Ship's Navigational Safety
(Marit. Univ Szczecin, Poland)

Saturday, 1. 4. 2000

9:00 Stefan Krüger Design Loads for Rudders from First Principle
(Flensburger Schiffbau- Investigations
Gesellschaft, Germany)

9:30 Daniele Peri, Michele Rosetti, An Example of Ship Hull Optimization via
Emilio Campana (INSEAN, Italy) Numerical Techniques

10:00 Stefan Harries (VWS Berlin, Automated Optimization: A Complementing

Germany), Technique for the Hydrodynamic Design
Lothar Birk (TU Berlin, Ger-
many)

10:30 Aleksander Kniat (TU Gdansk, Optimisation of Pipe Routing in 3D Space

Poland)

11:00 coffee break

11:30 Ivan Oestvik (LMG Marin, Nor- Application of Black Board Systems to Ship
way), Dimitris Konovessis Design
(Univ of Strathclyde, UK)

12:00 Michael G. Parsons, David J. A Fuzzy Logic Agent for Design Team Com-
Singer (Univ. of Michigan, USA) munications and Negotiation

12:30 Nickolas Sapidis, Gabriel Theo- Free-Volume Modeling in Engine-Room Lay-

dosiou, Panagiotis Kaklis out using Virtual Solids
(NTUA, Greece)

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Tomasz Cepoeski (Marit. Univ. Optimisation of Water Ballast Discharging

Szczecin, Poland), Tomasz Operation
Abramowski (TU Szczecin, Po-
land)

14:30 Ludwig Furstenberg (ITE, South Combing Artificial Intelligence with VTS for a
Africa) Traffic Management Information System

15:00 Ludwig Furstenberg (ITE, South Expert System Techniques Applied to Virtual
Africa) Prototyping and Design

AIPS study Page 95 June 2000

15:30 coffee break

16:00 Frutuoso M. Silva, Carlos 3D Virtual Environments for Ship Manoeu-

Guedes Soares (TU Lisbon, vring Simulation
Portugal)

16:30 Markus Aarnio (Deltamarin, Fin- New 3-D Tools Allow Early Project Stage Vir-
land) tual Models and Simulations

17:00 Aldo Zini, Attilio Rocca The Integration of Virtual Prototyping in Ship
(CETENA, Italy), Marco Raffa, Design
Roberto Costa
(Fincantieri, Italy)

Sunday, 2. 4. 2000

9:00 Peter Beier (Univ Michigan, Web-Based Virtual Reality in Design and
USA) Manufacturing Applications

10:00 Marco Barcellona (INSEAN, I- Virtual Reality Applications for CFD Post-
taly), Volker Bertram (HSVA, processing
Germany)

10:30 Ehsan Mesbahi (Univ Newcas- Empirical Design Formulae using Artificial
tle, UK), Neural Nets
Volker Bertram (HSVA, Ger-
many)

11:00 coffee break

11:30 Kourosh Koushan (Marintek, Prediction of Propeller Induced Pressure

Norway) Pulses Using Artificial Neural Networks

12:00 Ehsan Mesbahi, Mehmet Atlar Artificial Neural Net Applications in Ship De-
(Univ Newcastle, UK) sign

13:00 lunch

AIPS study Page 96 June 2000

A.4 The Dutch collaborative experience

The Dutch Maritime Cluster

Dutch yards are in a strong maritime cluster, supported by a very active shipyard as-
sociation (VNSI) promoting initiatives such as research on organization, logistics, and
EDI platforms and IT applications.
The Dutch cluster has been described in a economic impact study published by the
Delft University Press in separate volumes dedicated to shipbuilding industry, marine
equipment industry, The Royal Netherlands Navy, the Dutch seaport sector, the ship-
ping sector and the offshore sector, fishing, services, maritime construction and dredg-
ing works, inland navigation, offshore, aquatic sports, suppliers, and all shipbuilding
and auxiliary industries. Shipbuilding and auxiliary industries exported 46% of the pro-
duction and representing less than 9% of the total turnover of the maritime cluster, but
is understood as its cornerstone.
The maritime labour market was calculated in 1996 on more than 106,000 jobs, and
total employment generated was estimated on 193,000. The number of seafarers was
expected to increase from 13,750 in 1996 to 18,600 in 2004 showing good prospects
extended to the rest of the cluster (i.e. shipbuilding)
Indirect value generated by the shipbuilding sector is estimated no less than 1.3 times
the size of the direct value added many in small companies. Offshore only, accounts
343 Dutch offshore companies all sizes from the multinationals to the small ones.
The NML (Nederland Maritiem Land) foundation represents the maritime cluster.
The VNSI association of Dutch yards has about 100 members:
• 20 on sea-going shipbuilding,
• 15 in ship repair
• The rest being builders & repairers of coastal, work and inland ships
Around 40 yard sites appears regularly on the order-book and deliveries published by
the Dutch magazine HSB International. Many yards sites are today in groups or hold-
ings (IHC, DAMEN- see list)

General overview of the Dutch shipbuilding

Dutch yards are innovative in strategy, logistics and on the commercial and financial
approach. The yacht industry is considered at a close level to shipbuilding (mega-
yachts up to 90 m and more may have more added value than 100 m cargo vessels).
Commercial shipbuilding self-limits to 140 m maximum length (the competitively is fa-
voured under this size) although some yards may built ships up to 250 m of length.
Series are rare in the bigger sizes but some yards may combine one of a kind high
value ships with standard low cost small standard dredgers or work-boats built in two
or tree modules (hull, propulsion machinery, and deck equipment) in own account,
ready for quick delivery.
The steel work moves between the heavy-duty equipment and structures of dredgers
and the lighter inland or less than 140 m sea-going ships. Dredgers of all types are the
specialty of the Nederland shipbuilding

Nederland shipyards synergy with research centres (TNO and MARIN), the University
(Delft, side by side to TNO) and specialised industries and engineering (hydraulics,
CAD and ERP suppliers) is worth to be taken as an example.

Priorities
Dutch yards’ priorities were reported as:

AIPS study Page 97 June 2000

 Logistics: the ship type and the shipyard characteristics define the optimal construc-
tion strategy. The construction strategy is the main cost reduction option
Technology specialisation: the ships built have a higher added value on top of the
“pure steel” and the yards competitively main enabler is to maintain the “number one”
on its specialty.
Research priority is on new types of ships and on increasing ship and equipment
(dredging) performances.
Integration: Dutch yards give importance to integration they consider as part of the
logistics and what they translate as “engineering” (production strategy)

Software providers
CAD
There are three major firms of CAD software in the Nederlands
• The CIG (Central Industry Group) NUPAS, associated with CADMATIC (Finland)
• Yachting Consult
• SARC
Automation integration
Kranendonk ARAC software
ERP
Baan, a Dutch firm makes one of the best-known worldwide ERP software, but only
two yards in the Nederland uses it. Baan IV that is a general purpose software and
needs to be adapted to shipbuilding. One yard uses MARS, a ERP software for ship-
building made by a smaller Danish provider.
As a consequence of the interest of the Dutch maritime industry, in EUROPORT 2000
a special section for software with a special room for scheduled presentations was in-
cluded. See copy of the program of presentations attached.
Automation
Plate and profile cutting and marking is highly automated through two main contrac-
tors.
Welding automation is cautiously approached and does not appear to be a priority.
The interviews with Kranendonk and TU Delft describe the automation approach of the
Dutch automation integrator and of the Dutch yards (see separate report by Perez-
Prat).
Nederland is accepted in the European shipbuilding as an example for clustering and
logistics on medium and small construction (up to 140 m)

AIPS study Page 98 June 2000

A.5 The CESA working group on cooperation
The CESA working group on cooperation consisted of representatives from:
• Fincantieri S.p.A. (Italy)
• Aker Finnyards Oy (Finland)
• Astilleros Españoles S.A. (Spain)
• Chantiers de l'Atlantique - ALSTOM (France)
• Estaleiros Navais de Viana do Castelo (Portugal)
• Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft GmbH (Germany)
• Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG (Germany)
• Schelde Maritiem BV (The Nederlands)
• Van der Giessen de Noord (The Nederlands)
These 9 shipyards decided to exchange visits, collect and compile information in a
standardised way on the technological processes the layout and the equipment of
their respective yards.
The work of the workgroup is an example of openness and collaboration between
‘competing’ EU industries with the common of sharing knowledge and know-how on
shipbuilding production technologies.
During each visit, usually of one full day, the participants were shown the complete
yard, were given the opportunity to ask any question and take, through an official pho-
tographer, any picture desired.
The work of the workgroup has been documented in the “Production Technologies
Catalogue”, in HTML format, on a CD, made available to every participant at the
workgroup.

AIPS study Page 99 June 2000