Using Product Lifecycle Management to understand Total Cost of Ownership can deliver dividends to shipyards and their customers alike, writes Nick Danese, SSI
European shipbuilding faces considerable challenges as it looks to capture the opportunities of fleet expansion, new vessel designs and new fuels, driven by the need to lower carbon emissions while remaining commercially competitive.
The industry’s well-known expertise in high end cruiseship tonnage is supplemented by the design and building of specialist vessel types, such as short sea vessels, windfarm support ships, cable-layers, highly-specialized Navy and Coast Guard vessels.
But competition for these relatively niche shipbuilding projects has grown steadily in recent years, with developing economies playing an increasing role in serving the offshore energy development, subsea infrastructure, naval and more recently, cruise ship markets.
For the European shipbuilding sector, opportunity lies in embracing technology that differentiates its expertise and enables its customers to benefit from the advantages of practical and focused digital models, metadata and better process to support design, construction and lifetime maintenance, repair and platform evolution.
Just as other shipbuilding regions have adopted processes and technology that allow them to compete in the high volume market sectors, Europe’s opportunity in specialist, technical shipbuilding can be reinforced by a strategic approach to Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) based on a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) approach.
Harnessing Data
TCO has become a determining factor in decision-making in the more financially sensitive sectors of shipbuilding and ship ownership. How easily a ship can be maintained and retrofits performed is strongly influenced by the quality of the digital information created as a part of the vessel’s design, engineering and construction.
In light of fast-changing technology, platform adaptability, evolution and transformation have become a significant component.
In some cases, Navies have even found it less costly to build a new unit than to renovate an existing one. Some estimates put lifecycle Opex at 40% or more of the initial cost of the vessel, while adding that a small increase in Capex would reduce OpEx measurably.
By investing slightly more Capex upfront through PLM, the owner is able to reduce the total lifetime costs of the newbuilding or fleet programme, supporting retrofit and upgrades rather than committing investment to further newbuilds.
By focussing on TCO at project inception, it is possible for operators, including merchant and navies, to extend the service life of existing assets or change the mission profile of ongoing projects,
PLM has been much talked about and attempted by a number of significant industry players for some years. Today, for the first time, a shipbuilding-specific PLM platform is an available reality for shipyards of all sizes, building all types of vessels.
The underlying mission of PLM is to harness data and information in a relational environment while making these readily available to consumers and stakeholders in a timely, immediately exploitable format and fashion.
It can become a significant advantage for Europe’s high-end shipbuilding sector, increasing monitoring and control of costs as early as the bidding phase.
PLM provides the environment required to create the design-phase digital prototype in a controlled fashion, adapt it into the as-built digital twin and finally evolve this to reflect changes undergone by the vessel. Importantly in the pursuit of cost control, it enables more accurate estimation and ROI evaluation of design options for later vessel modification.
While PLM is not designed primarily as a cost saving tool or optimization application it does provide a unique data and information platform to allow cost estimation and optimization applied to design, maintenance, repair, conversion, thus directly supporting TCO as a strategy.
Data Infrastructure
A PLM environment allows the reuse of existing and legacy data, accelerating the concept validation process within a strategic cost control approach. The availability of data from previous projects enhances its value.
Similarly, series, sistership, and quasi-sistership projects are monitored and controlled closely, allowing better planning and forecasting so that each new vessel is not treated as a prototype.
The PLM approach enables yards to streamline their resources because the design and construction processes can be more efficient and better controlled. This approach adds a competitive edge for shipyards early in the process.
A better understanding of the total cost of ownership helps buyers evaluate their investment and estimate returns. It also extends to optimizing labor costs and investing efficiently in equipment and industrial processes, supporting the sustainability of the shipyard’s business and the employment it provides.
The views presented are only those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
