A System Engineering Approach to evaluate PLM during Upstream Ship Design Processes

Abstract

Ship design is a complex and iterative process to design the best possible vessel for a customer. Inside the conceptualization phase a lot of requirement information, calculations and documents is created and collected. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a process to manage these documents and the process itself. An ongoing implementation process is facing resistance in the company currently regarding the tools chosen and what it will be like for the employs when the process and tools is implemented. The software selected consists of a 3D drawing tool with a database of searchable components. Documents and information is intended to be stored together with this 3D model for the specific vessel. Re-use of components, assemblies and vessels, and reduced time across design and engineering phase is the main goal with this new implementation, and to get better control of the specific projects. The step of shifting from 2D to 3D drawing tool is a big leap for the company. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the PLM process during upstream ship design process with the stakeholders perspectives conserved. Upstream ship design is the all the phases from conceptualization and until the vessel is ready for delivery. The scope of this thesis is limited to the conceptual design phase, were the layout of the vessel is designed. Systems Engineering approach is applied to investigate the case and collect information from different perspectives. The PLM process is evaluated based on the findings of the investigation. Evaluation shows many good aspects with the use of PLM in the conceptual phase, but some issues needs to be resolved before making this approach the current state of the art. One challenge is the assumed time to make the first revision of the ship design. Based on experience from other companies, the assumed time to design the vessel will increase by approximately 6 ����� 9%, dependent on the project type. However, when this master model of the vessel is created, it is assumed a shorter time than before to come up with the second revision of the General Arrangement. Many positive ripple effect will come from this 3D model, like Bill of Material, revision control, a 3D model which can be exported to stability software, rendered illustrations of the vessel, and less export between softwares than now.