Efficiently capture manufacturing know-how to support reuse 

As experienced manufacturing planners and workers are approaching retirement, it is critical that shipyards capture existing knowledge and experience. In addition, they need to better leverage this information to optimize their production processes. Specifically, marine and offshore companies need to reuse their existing knowledge and previous production planning experience to reduce their cycle time while improving product quality. They are challenged to make this know-how available in an easily reusable form within their multi-disciplinary environment and across their multi-site organization.

With Optimized Production For Sea, shipbuilders can build process templates that describe the different activities and how they are done, which can then be reused for each new shipbuilding project. By making sure that company standards are embedded in the manufacturing planning, production planners no longer need to start from scratch, saving considerable preparation time and money. Companies can define the types of machines available at the shipyard with their characteristics and production capacities so that planners can select the right equipment for a particular task. They can also customize templates by adding their own equipment’s attributes. Moreover, shipyards can embed company knowledge in the form of rules to ensure that the production planning complies with corporate preferences, guidelines and conventions.

• Capture company specific data and optimize manufacturing processes
• Efficiently capture know-how and existing production planning experience for capitalization and reuse
• Define embedded business rules to optimize the manufacturing process
• Define shipyard equipment resources and behaviors
• Manage manufacturing assembly, process plan, and drawing templates

Efficiently develop manufacturing assembly definition to support work preparation and production 

The production of any large ship or offshore platform is a major undertaking involving a large ecosystem. One of the first major steps in any such project is to define the build strategy including the block definitions and the manufacturing assemblies within each block. This is fundamental information that forms the foundation of the production planning process. It is therefore critical that this assembly process leverages existing company knowledge and experience to define assemblies that are optimized for production within the specific shipyard.

Optimized Production For Sea transposes an engineering BOM, organized by system, into a manufacturing BOM, which is organized by block. It details what needs to be built and the sequence of operations required to build each block. As design and manufacturing information are fully integrated in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, engineering design changes are automatically propagated to the manufacturing information, promoting data integrity from design to manufacture.

• Reuse standard manufacturing assembly templates
• Manage, view, and navigate large manufacturing assemblies
• Generate cross-discipline manufacturing assemblies directly from engineering design data
• Effectively manage engineering changes with automatic propagation to reduce downstream errors and rework
• Quickly and easily identify which design objects are not included in the manufacturing planning
• Generate assembly drawings

Create and automate steel structure work preparation to optimize manufacturing

The fabrication and assembly of the ship structure is a core undertaking of the shipyard. The process to convert the engineering design of the ship structure into manufacturing plans to support the fabrication and assembly was long considered an “art” that only highly specialized “loftsmen” could successfully undertake. As technology has taken over the design and manufacturing planning of ships, the process of structure work preparation has started to become more and more automated. A key challenge in today’s modern shipbuilding environments is for shipbuilders to leverage existing “lofting” expertise with integrated design and manufacturing solutions to lead to more efficient and effective structure work preparation and production.

Optimized Production For Sea provides tight integration between design and manufacturing information that allows Structure Production Preparation to correctly interpret the design information that defines the stiffeners and to automatically create the markings where these stiffeners will be positioned and welded. Companies can also define rules based on their experience and know-how to guide the placement of required markings, further optimizing manufacturing. Efficient nesting capabilities help utilize, in the best way possible, steel plates thereby reducing waste. 

• Perform rule-driven generation of structure work preparation based on engineering design
• Perform rule driven creation of weld planning and the corresponding manufacturing features
• Create and modify 3D manufacturing for structure plates and profiles
• Synchronize manufacturing features based on engineering changes
• Generate and capture profile and plate nesting information
• Generate workshop documents such as drawings and XML files

Create and automate composite structure work preparation to optimize manufacturing

Composite materials are increasingly used in vessel construction as they present strength, stiffness and weight advantages that can achieve higher speeds and consume less fuel than their equivalent counterparts made of steel or aluminum. Yet, the manufacturing of composite materials can be very complex. The main challenge is to be able to efficiently determine the ply arrangement and the fiber direction that will meet the strength criteria and at the same time ensure manufacturability and reduce material waste.

Optimized Production For Sea provides an integrated solution for managing the composites manufacturing preparation process. Integrated analysis helps identify the number of plies in each zone based on strength criteria. A powerful flat pattern feature automatically lays out the plies in a way that makes best use of the composite sheet. Optimized Production For Sea delivers an efficient interface to major shop floor machines that enables workers to design and cut the plies and to generate the associated documentation.

• Incorporate composites manufacturing constraints defined during engineering
• Generate flat patterns and ensure producibility
• Effectively manage change propagation from engineering to manufacturing
• Generate associative shop floor documentation
• Efficiently interface to major shop floor systems

Develop process plans and 3D work instructions to support manufacturing

As today’s ships and platforms are becoming larger and more sophisticated, the process to build them needs to adapt and evolve to ensure they are produced as efficiently as possible. A process plan is a critical component of a ship or platform’s manufacturing lifecycle. It defines the sequence of how products are built, the operations that are involved, the human and machine resources that are used to perform the operations and the instructions that are needed to build the ship or platform.  What is challenging here is the ability to validate the process plan before execution starts. 

Optimized Production For Sea enables to validate each step of the process plan, simulate the execution, and identify bottle necks and issues. It also helps process engineers to adjust the process plan and optimize it to ensure an efficient and effective production execution.

With Optimized Production For Sea planners use manufacturing data to develop the process plan that details the jobs and operations to be performed, the time required for each and the resources that are needed. Planners can also automatically generate interactive 3D work instructions from the process plan to support the manufacturing assembly.

• Reuse standard process plans and standard operation templates
• Generate process plans from the defined manufacturing assemblies
• Define and optimize process plans and related production job orders
• Define operations and constraints between operations within a process plan
• Maximize utilization of resources in the planning stages by balancing operations
• Produce and deliver 3D interactive work instructions

Simulate and validate the manufacturing process and enable shipyard automation via advanced robotics

As the shipbuilding industry is very competitive, shipbuilders are looking for ways to optimize their operations and reduce costs. One area where we see evidence of this is that shipyards are evolving their production processes to integrate more automation. This automation allows shipbuilders to increase their efficiency, lower their total labor costs, improve safety, and improve their product quality. 

In addition and to ensure optimized production, shipbuilders must validate production plans before production starts.

Optimized Production For Sea enables companies to simulate a process plan to ensure product manufacturability and fit. It also has features that focus on ergonomics when tasks are performed by humans with the ability to create manikins to virtually simulate the different tasks to detect any interferences or impossibilities. Optimized Production For Sea also delivers features to simulate a robot enabling companies to make corrections before physical programming. 

• Perform 3D simulation and validation of production plans
• Program, simulate, and validate fabrication and welding operations before sending programs and setups to the shop floor
• Perform ergonomic simulation and validation to ensure safety and feasibility