Ship Production Planning Using Shipbuilding System Modeling and Discrete Time Process Simulation

Abstract

Production planning is an important factor for production efficiency in the shipyard. However, planning is currently executed by manual operations based on the experience of field workers because of the complexity of the target shipbuilding project. This paper proposes a method of creating a realistic production plan automatically by modeling the complex shipbuilding project and using the developed process simulation. Specifically, we propose a method to represent the target shipbuilding process by four system models—Product, Workflow, Workplace, and Team. By executing the developed process simulation using system models, a Gantt chart can be created as a realistic production plan. From the case studies of a virtual shipyard manufacturing a ship hull block, it can be said that the proposed method can create a good production plan considering the complexity of the target shipbuilding project. In addition, the proposed method can evaluate the bottleneck of the target shipyard and the re-allocation plan for workers quantitatively.

Development of Augmented Reality Technology Implementation in a Shipbuilding Project Realization Process

“…The estimation of the optimal number of (production) working hours required for the project realization is one of the critical preconditions for the realization of a competitive shipbuilding system [49]. However, the high complexity of shipbuilding projects represents a major challenge in production planning and scheduling of working capacities [50,51]. Furthermore, due to the traditional one-way hierarchical link between long-term production planning and mid-term scheduling, changes in mid-term plans, in terms of redistributing work capacities to preserve production deadlines, are not timely updated in long-term plans [52].…”

A novel approach for planning of shipbuilding processes

“…First of all, production planning is mostly performed manually and in a decentralized manner, leading to an inefficient planning process. The lack of flexibility of planning processes against unexpected occurrences is another insufficiency preventing efficient responses to real-time events [4]. The absence of a well-accepted methodology or a generalpurpose (i.e., a simple, not specialized to a ship, easily configurable and widely applicable to many ship types) framework is also a drawback, leading planning activities to rely solely on the knowledge of experienced personnel.…”

“…In this study, the complex shipbuilding production process at the shop level is hierarchically modeled, shipbuilding activities are correlated and simulated through discreteevent simulation, and eventually detailed schedules are generated, considering the workload of employees. The framework is applied to a virtual shipyard for the construction process of a single shipbuilding hull block [4].…”

A Constrained Programming Model for the Optimization of Industrial-Scale Scheduling Problems in the Shipbuilding Industry

“…Shipbuilding is an extraordinarily complex and Engineering-to-Order industry where each order (ship) is managed as a customized project and involves an endless amount of resources and technologies [1][2][3][4][5]. Thus, each project entails a high degree of uncertainty and associated risk, leading to the need for methods and systems to plan, monitor, and control the production systems involved.…”

“…Refs. [1,10] point out that so far, few works have addressed the FJSP in shipbuilding. Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) as described in [5,7,10] and discrete-event simulation models like the ones used in [8,[10][11][12][13] are the main approaches used in this area.…”