'Concurrent engineering in a complex unique production process through development of communication standards which will lead to a fully integrated industrial shipbuilding process' is the description of the CONCOMSHIP project. The main participants in a SME shipbuilding process were the core group of participants in this project.
The project was focused on the organization of the design and engineering phase. The main objectives ('reduction of throughput time' and 'reduction of man-hours') should be reached by structured communication in a concurrent engineering process.
Information flows throughout the shipbuilding process were analyzed and modelled. Shortcomings and bottlenecks as: 'information is late and not complete', 'status of information is not known' and 'information exchange should be structured' were signalled and agreed upon.
To improve the situation the following experimental functions had to be incorporated in an existing design and engineering tool:
- Change control - Status information should be reported automatically; Users of information should be recorded
- Flexibility - Data should be available in a flexible way
- Enhancing info contents - Addition of extra information to individual parts
To enable a successful implementation of concurrent engineering the participants specified improvements to be incorporated in an existing design and engineering tool.
The indicated improvements were translated to functional and IT specifications.
As a result the following five experimental tools were implemented:
- Engineering information management
Communication is improved and the influence of changes can be managed with the experimental change and distribution control system. The parameters Revision, Phase, Status and Approval give an indication about the quality of the information. A distribution control system indicates who should be informed when the design and engineering information is changed.
- Information exchange
The CONCOMSHIP communication standard is developed. This standard describes a standard layer structure and is implemented in the design and engineering tool.
- Report and data-generator
Required (logistical) information can be generated, selected and presented in a flexible way with the experimental report and data generator. The information flow to other sub-processes can be customized to the needs of these processes.
- Work-breakdown structure (WBS)
The WBS is incorporated to be able to customize the information to the needs of the production processes in the integrated shipbuilding process.
- Enhancing information contents
The possibility is created to add extra (logistical) information to a ship part in the design and engineering tool to enable an integrated industrial shipbuilding process.
A reduction of total throughput time and amount of man-hours is expected when concurrent engineering and an integrated shipbuilding process, supported by the developed experimental tools, is implemented and organized as is explained in the Handbook Integrated Shipbuilding. The handbook contains the user manuals and training modules for instruction and transfer of knowledge.