Enabling the Digital Thread for Shipbuilding and Shipping

Abstract

Ships are complex, often unique products. They are made of hundreds of thousands to millions of single parts and components which have to be created and placed as part of the design process, managed in bills of materials for part manufacturing or purchasing and assigned to assembly stages for production planning and logistics. In this paper we will present our advances with the practical application of our 2017 analysis results of the differences between dedicated “intent-driven” ship building systems and more general mechanical CAD based systems [1]. Being able to evolve the digital master of the ship along the ship development process from contract design to manufacturing without information flow breaks – and eventually becoming a digital twin during the product’s operational life – is a major digital thread capability. The second important capability is configuration management, enabling involved parties to know which parts are currently valid for design, manufacturing and operation.