Report on Concurrent Engineering Implementation in a Shipyard

Abstract

Concurrent Engineering (CE), a systematic approach to involving all affected functions in the simultaneous development of products and processes, has received wide recognition as a means of significantly improving overall operating results for manufacturing companies. When successfully applied, the CE process results in significant improvements in customer satisfaction, quality and cycle time. DOD studies and industry experience show that CE may reduce the number of design changes by 50%, reduce design to production time by 40-70%, and decrease scrap and rework by 75%. In the belief that the benefits of CE methodologies could assist the U.S. shipbuilding industry to become internationally competitive, the NSRP awarded a contract to BIW, supported by a consultant team headed by Thomas Lamb, to study the application and implementation of CE to the U.S. shipbuilding industry. The study was awarded in July 1993 and completed in July 1995. Previous reports have described the Application Phase of the study and provided a User s Guide and Primer in Concurrent Engineering. This final report describes a pilot CE implementation conducted at BIW from December 1993 through June 1995 and an industry-wide Workshop held in Portland Maine in June 1995. The CE pilot implementation began with the evaluation and selection of a host design/construction project in December 1993. After balancing the need for manageable size, project significance and schedule compatibility, the ARPA funded MARITECH Commercial Shipbuilding Focused Development Project involving the development of two vehicle carrier designs, was selected. Other major elements of this project included technology transfer from European and Japanese shipyards, facilities design, build strategy development and contracts/financial planning. A significant advantage of this project with respect to CE was the involvement of two major US ship owner/operators.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1995
Accession Number
ADA457461

Entities

People

  • James G. Bennett
  • R. A. Wallen
  • Thomas Lamb

Organizations

  • Bath Iron Works

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Assembly
  • Cargo Handling
  • Concurrent Engineering
  • Cost Reductions
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Environmental Protection
  • Hydrodynamics
  • Industrial Engineering
  • Management Training
  • Manufacturing
  • Marine Systems (Military)
  • Naval Architecture
  • Ship Design
  • Shipbuilding
  • Shipyards
  • Systems Engineering

Readers

  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • Naval Engineering and Maritime Security
  • Technical Research and Report Writing.