Lean Methodology to Transform Shipbuilding Panel Assembly

Abstract

The core competence of any medium-to-large sized shipyard includes the panel assembly line. Ship panels are the basic building blocks of well over 60% of the interim products of typical commercial ships. Therefore the improvement of the panel assembly process could greatly reduce the number of man-hours of all assembled panels, thereby yielding significant savings to the shipyard. Using a lean methodology to make kaizen improvements to traditional panel assembly lines will greatly reduce the costs in ship production. This means that shipyards, which are barely keeping earnings above costs, will be able to increase profits. Value stream mapping is a key way of determining how lean a production process is. The wastes in production assembly are readily identified as well as the takt time and the areas where there is push as opposed to pull. In this paper, a case study of a typical commercial shipyard, which builds a product mix of vessels is analyzed. The present state panel assembly line is mapped and then using lean tools and avant-garde technologies, such as hybrid laser arc welding, the new transformed panel assembly line is demonstrated to bring man-hour reductions of over 80%, so that a typical panel is assembled using 12 man-hours as opposed to the present 72 man-hours.

Lean IHOP Transformation of Shipyard Erection Block Construction

“…Micropanel assembly was likely mapped using lean manufacturing techniques which resulted in improved micropanel assembly (Kolich et al 2014). Similar treatment for panel assembly and built-up panel assembly likewise (Kolich et al 2015a(Kolich et al , 2016(Kolich et al , 2017a(Kolich et al , 2017b. The savings are significant 80% and 60% successively.…”

“…The complete assembly of an outfitted and painted block ready for erection to the slipway or dry dock is analyzed and mapped using a value stream mapping methodology developed in earlier papers (Kolich et al 2012b(Kolich et al , 2014(Kolich et al , 2015a(Kolich et al , 2016(Kolich et al , 2017a(Kolich et al , 2017b. The lean value stream mapping method is used to show the flow of interim products which are assembled similar to lego blocks.…”

Lean Tools Applied to a Shipbuilding Panel Line Assembling Process

“…The first alternative on the panel assembly line sequence to be study aims to test the reliability of the "one-piece flow" concept on the several plates that form the panel, as suggested by Liker & Lamb [3] and Kolich et al [6], i.e., instead of assuming the panel as an individual product, consider it as a sum of multiple single products. Hence, the panel assembly line sequence would suffer a profound modification on its nature, thus displaying the following arrangement: Cutting of the correct perimeter of the steel plate, assembling of the stiffeners on the steel plate, welding of the stiffeners, and, finally, butt welding of the individual sets "plate + stiffeners", as shown in Figure 11.…”

“…The importance and benefits of the application of Lean methodology in the shipbuilding industry was stressed by Liker & Lamb [3] and Storch & Lim [4]. Kolich et al [5,6] developed a significant set of studies on the subject of application of Lean methodologies in the shipbuilding process, some of them inspecting with more detail such methodology application on the panel assembly line.…”

PWBS Best Practice Analysis of Two Shipyards

“…Value stream mapping methodology has been demonstrated to aid in improving panel assembly process [8,9], the built-up panel assembly process [10,11] and the large block erection process [12]. However, the purpose of this paper is to determine and demonstrate how the PWBS of two shipyards should be compared, and the one with the best system should be adopted by the other.…”