# A Process-Oriented Approach for Shipbuilding Industrial Design Using Advanced PLM Tools

Lucia Recio Rubio, Amanda Martin Mariscal, Estela Peralta Alvarez, Fernando Mas

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Lucia Recio Rubio, Amanda Martin Mariscal, Estela Peralta Alvarez, Fernando Mas. A Process-Oriented Approach for Shipbuilding Industrial Design Using Advanced PLM Tools. 19th IFIP International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Jul 2022, Grenoble, France. pp.144-152, 10.1007/978-3-031-25182-5_15. hal-05420892

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# A Process-Oriented Approach for Shipbuilding Industrial Design Using Advanced PLM Tools

Lucia Recio Rubio¹,² ID, Amanda Martin Mariscal¹, Estela Peralta Alvarez¹ ID, and Fernando Mas¹,²(✉) ID

¹ MyM Group, Cadiz, Spain
{lrecio, fmas}@us.es

² University of Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

**Abstract.** The digitalization age is upon us; no one, not even the largest industries, is oblivious to the great advances in technology that are being achieved. Digital continuity, Industry 4.0, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) are currently major challenges for companies that cover the entire life cycle of a product, such as the aerospace or shipbuilding industry. The research aims to introduce functional and industrial product structures and process structure concepts into the shipbuilding industry. The aim of this paper is a proposal of a process-oriented approach to the organization of naval manufacturing engineering based on the generation of both a product structure for design and manufacturing, engineering Bill Of Material (eBOM) and manufacturing Bill Of Material (mBOM), and a process structure Bill Of Process (BOP) to ensure digital continuity using advanced PLM tools.

**Keywords:** PLM · Shipbuilding industry · Digital continuity · mBOM · eBOM · BOP · Industry 4.0

## 1 Introduction

Digital continuity, Industry 4.0, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) are currently major challenges for companies that cover the entire life cycle of a product, such as the aerospace, shipbuilding, and automotive industry.

Industry 4.0 is a production system that applies digital technologies to manufacturing and assembly and affects all activities related to manufacturing, from the industrial design of the product and the manufacturing and assembly processes to the planning of the product and the organization of work [1]. These digital technologies brought together under the umbrella of Industry 4.0 [2] contribute to digital continuity throughout the life cycle.

In particular, the design and manufacturing of vessels, changes in methods, processes, and enterprise information systems require new challenges for the management of product information. Industry 4.0 and PLM systems are a key digital continuity change within shipbuilding companies [3].
The progressive implementation of Industry 4.0 and the digitalization tools in the shipbuilding industry justify the analysis of the functional and industrial design of the vessel. Also, some characteristics of the shipbuilding industry make it different from other industries applying Industry 4.0 and PLM. Shipbuilding is ordered-driven; a new design is made for each new vessel. In addition, the entire process, from contracting and design to construction, occurs simultaneously. Shipbuilding is a labor-intensive assembly industry; to produce a vessel, extensive labor, production costs, production time, products, and resources are required.

The aim of this work is to propose a process-oriented approach to the organization of the information handled by design engineering and manufacturing engineering, based on the generation of both a product structure for design and manufacturing, engineering Bill Of Material (eBOM) and manufacturing Bill Of Material (mBOM), and a process structure, Bill Of Processes (BOP), to ensure digital continuity using advanced PLM tools. The proposed product and process structures will facilitate collaborative engineering and concurrent definition of the functional and industrial design of the vessel.

## 2 Literature Review

Recently, there has been much research in the scientific literature on the conversion of the labor-intensive and experience-centered shipbuilding industry into a knowledge and technology-based industry making use of Industry 4.0 principles.

The term Industry 4.0 was introduced during the Hannover Fair in 2011 and was officially announced in 2013 by the German government as a strategic initiative to play a pioneering role in manufacturing industries [4]. It is a concept that describes the complex process of technological and organizational transformation of companies, the introduction of new business models, and the digitization of products and services [5].

The leaders in the shipbuilding industry, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) runs initiatives to develop a design system/environment that can reduce the cost of system design and development, Europe has led the design of shipbuilding system and naval/marine through projects funded by the European Community, and the Computerized Ship Design and Production System (CSDP) project led by the Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO) aims to implement ship Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) based technology for ship manufacturing systems [6].

Most of the research in [7–11] have focused its efforts on different approaches to generate a BOM in an automatic and efficient way, oriented to a block division to determine the best assembly sequence planning. This procedure can not represent a full BOP due to the tree nature of the BOM. An interesting approach in [12] attempts to understand the use, form and evolution of product structures and BOM concepts in shipbuilding with the aim of identifying equivalent notions in construction during the Beginning Of Life (BOL); however, the relationship between them throughout the lifecycle is unclear.

Digital continuity throughout the lifecycle, application of the digital mock-up of the vessel throughout the lifecycle, from contract to manufacturing using PLM tools, has been a research topic in recent years [13–15], fully supported by the major software
vendors, such as Dassault Systèmes [16] and Siemens [17], and the most relevant independent consultants, such as CIMdata [18] and ProSTEP [19]. Most of them rely on the use of the mBOM as BOP transferring this information to the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to create the processes and relationships.

Several authors [6, 20, 21] have provided a most in-depth analysis of the entire product lifecycle from conceptual design to delivery, proposing the following production steps: part fabrication, part assembly, block assembly, block outfitting, painting, block erection, erection, launching, onboard outfitting, test & trials, and delivery.

# 3 Proposed Model

## 3.1 Complexity in Shipbuilding and Aerospace Industries

Vessels are complex products made of millions of single parts and components that must be designed, managed in bills of materials for manufacturing or purchasing, and assembled managing production planning and logistics. The shipbuilding industry differs from other typical manufacturing industries in the following characteristics.

* The vessels are truly diverse, difficult to standardize due to the user's requirements.

* Manufacturing begins while the functional design is not complete, so many engineering changes are expected during manufacturing and assembly.

* Shipbuilding is a labor-intensive industry, difficult to mechanize and automate.

* The accuracy required is high and the structure is complex, so it is difficult to standardize the manufacturing process.

* Vessels with different configurations are built at the same time.

The aerospace industry has similar complexity and shares some of the previous characteristics with the shipbuilding industry [22]. To highlight the similarities, Fig. 1, adapted from [6], shows how to fit the shipbuilding steps with the aerospace major component assembly lines and the aerospace Final Assembly Line (FAL).

The digital continuity and PLM methods and tools used by the aerospace industry [23] could be reused in the shipbuilding industry. An approach to managing “As design” and “As planned” product structures for the aerospace industry presented in [24, 25] can apply to vessel eBOM and mBOM product structures with some adaptations.

The shipbuilding industry does not use, in general, the joint concept. The representation of the joint definition is done directly into the product definition. The Bill Of Process (BOP) is used to represent the assembly processes.
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. Vessel design, manufacturing, and assembly steps. Adapted from [7]</figcaption></figure>

## 3.2 Definitions of Product and Process Structures

Shipbuilding eBOM (engineering Bill Of Material) is a product structure oriented to represent the functional definition of the product: hull structure and mechanical, hydraulic, fuel, electrical and other systems, and equipment. It is a hierarchical system, the top is the ship, composed of various levels of intermediate products. Engineers design the ship and structure the eBOM based on requirements and customer needs. eBOM is usually represented by an abstract data type that reproduces a hierarchical tree structure with a root value and subtrees of children with a parent node. The last level of the subtrees, the leaves, contains 3D information.

Shipbuilding mBOM (manufacturing Bill Of Material) is a product structure oriented to represent the industrial definition of the product: physical products identified as an input or output of a manufacturing or assembly process, needed to program NC (Numerical Controlled) or automated machines and robots, moved and/or stored, involved in a process that needs to be simulated or to generate technical documentation for manufacturing, assembly, and verification or to have control of its configuration.

Shipbuilding BOP (Bill Of Processes) is a network of processes oriented to manufacture and assemble the products and their related components based on the mBOM and in accordance with the technological characteristics of the shipyard, the preparation of product parts, components, sections, and the requirements and conditions of the supply chain.

## 3.3 Proposed Use Case

The proposed use case is based on a typical Bulk-Carrier and a simple block decomposition of seven blocks represented in Fig. 2. Any other vessel can accommodate to the eBOM, mBOM and BOP structures definition despite the differences between the uppers level of the product structure: passengers, cargo, containers, Ro-Ro, tankers, tugs, yachts, or military vessels.
The Block 200, selected for the Use Case, is decomposed in Shells, Bulkheads, and Decks representing the Hull. Each block starting with B100 and ending with B400 should be decomposed in the same way. A part of the Bilge Discharge System running across the B200 stands for a System, where any other System could be represented in the same way.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2.** A typical Bulk-carrier and Block 200 details used in the use case.</figcaption></figure>

In summary, Block B200 is made up of panels: one bottom shell (bottom shell), two shell sides (Shell Side 1 and Shell Side 2), two bulkheads (Bulkhead 1 and Bulkhead 2) and one deck (Deck), represented with different colors and transparencies to improve visibility in Fig. 2. The bilge discharge system is represented with hull attachments in distinct colors to highlight the relationship with the panels.
## 3.4 Product and Process Structures

The eBOM product structure should represent the functional definition of the product, in terms of Hull and Systems, satisfying the customer requirements, standards, company and quality rules, etc. A proposed eBOM for B200 is shown in Fig. 3. To simplify the Use Case there is only one System represented in the B100, the bilge discharge system, represented as part of the water drained system as one of the multiple Systems onboard.

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 3. Proposed eBOM for Bulk-Carrier Block 200.</figcaption></figure>

The eBOM structure can be managed by a Product Data Management (PDM), which also stores multiples CAX files and other document files, allowing naval engineers to manage the vessel parts and systems from a functional view.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 4. Proposed mBOM for Bulk-Carrier Block 200.</figcaption></figure>

The mBOM product structure should represent the industrial definition of the product, in terms of building strategy, logistics system, resources availability, etc. A proposed
mBOM for B200 is shown in Fig. 4. To simplify the Use Case, there is only one block represented and there is no mBOM structure for erection and further activities like onboard outfitting.

Both eBOM and mBOM structures are synchronized through the lower-level layer, the leaves of the structure, where the CAX files and documents reside. This is a shared layer between both structures.

The mBOM product structure is synchronized with the Bill Of Process. The BOP represents the manufacturing and assembly processes to build the vessel. In the Use Case the BOP represents the Block B200 processes in an industrial environment shown in the Fig. 5. Every process is characterized by de input (product represented in the mBOM), the output (product represented in the mBOM), the resources (machinery, jigs & tools, industrial means, workers, documentation, etc.) and the time needed to perform the operations. The BOP is a network, and therefore each process has predecessors and successors.

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 5. Representative BOP at block level coordinated with the mBOM.</figcaption></figure>

The combination of eBOM, mBOM and BOP let the naval engineers to perform a collaborative design process, maintaining an influence between the functional design and the industrial design and enabling other capabilities like virtual manufacturing, flow simulation trade-offs with scenarios, industrial digital twins, and other digital methods and tools.

## 4 Results and Conclusions

This paper presents a proposal to build vessel product and process structures in an analogous way to aerospace artifacts considering the similarities between both industries.
The approach is based on the definition of a unique product structure with two views and coordinated with the process network.

The first conclusion, derived from the literature review, is that the application to the shipbuilding industry of Industry 4.0 and PLM methods and tools is a relevant research topic.

The proposed Use Case has devised a method to maintain eBOM and mBOM coordinated through a common shared layer. Both product structures use the same components and data, and the upper structures of the eBOM and the mBOM represent the functional and the industrial representation of the product.

Consequently, eBOM, mBOM and BOP can be developed, maintained, and stored in a PDM. Commercial PLM software can be used to manage the technical information for the different vessel design skills: hull CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis, stress and mechanical calculations, electrical and electronic system design and test, process and flow simulation, etc. BOP is fully coordinated with mBOM and represents the network of processes for the manufacturing and assembly of a block and further the full vessel.

Based on the mBOM and BOP, the digital continuity through the lifecycle is guaranteed with an interface connecting with the ERP systems, simulation capabilities, line balancing trade-offs and other tools.

Future studies should aim to extend the BOM and BOP to the erection, launching, onboard outfitting, test & trials, and delivery to cover the full shipyard process. In addition, we extend the research to the development and management of the “as built” configuration through the manufacturing and assembly processes.

**Acknowledgements.** The authors would like to recognize Maria Jose Garcia Rodriguez, M&M Group colleagues and Seville University colleagues for support during the development of this work and thank them for their contribution.

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