Over the last decade, the global marine industry's perception of technology has shifted. The sector was traditionally viewed as innovative, but this view has somewhat diminished over time. Many still consider it a relatively old-fashioned industry that is slow in adopting modern technologies compared to other sectors of the economy. This view is fast-changing. Today, ships can be operated more efficiently and safely than ever before with the digitalization of maritime processes.
There is no longer a one-size-fits-all for digitizing within the marine industry, and the level of digitization varies across the industry. Some companies have taken to digitizing their business, while others prefer to stick with the old way of doing things. Most companies fall somewhere in between.
The unique challenges of marine engineering demand careful attention. Multi-discipline design engineers, physical space constraints, extreme weather conditions, deep water and remote locations all affect individual components. Your project and team can't afford any downtime or productivity loss while completing projects on schedule and within budget. Re-entering data in more than one system can compromise information reliability and significantly increase teams' total time entering and searching for information. Efficient project execution and later operation requires immediate access to accurate and reliable data — from design to production, as well during operation.
Top business risks with traditional approaches
Lack of integration across different disciplines/departments
The traditional marine industry is one of the most complex industries to manage and operate. It involves multiple disciplines from business management production engineering to design, planning and production/assembly. The ship life cycle spiral is incredibly complex in the engineering and production stage, where the multiple disciplines follow different time phases.
The lack of integration between different disciplines and departments makes it difficult for them to share information and work together effectively. Teams struggle to produce reliable data for others who are dependent on it during the project.
No visualization of overall processes
The different disciplines run on different time paths through the design cycle, which makes it challenging to maintain a complete view of the overall process. No automated way exists to visualize this entire process and the status of each process step at any time. That also makes it hard to manage the entire process, track data and make changes to adapt to a changing environment. During these stages, the differences between the different disciplines provide insightful information to the other teams to focus on this "unaligned" data.
Inaccessible and unreliable information
The biggest challenge with the old approach is access to reliable information and turnaround times. Organizations need a holistic view of the status of a project or order, where the information often comes from multiple solutions. Solutions are often disconnected and do not provide the correct holistic view of the project or order.
Errors in resources planning
The marine industry is an environment where resources are limited for engineers, available working space and raw materials. Many stakeholders are involved in the project, which makes it difficult to plan activities accordingly. Delays often occur in organizations such as shipyards and other marine environments. Inaccurate resources planning leads to a lack of required components and causes further delays.
Limited recycling potential of existing data (Sisterships)
Shipbuilding has long focused on cost and efficiency due to its manual processes. The challenge occurs when reusing information from previous projects, which are relevant to future project studies. Shipyards must deal with massive amounts of data, and they also face high workloads when processing information from one project to another. This results in dispersed and unreliable data sources and long turnaround times.
Inefficient quality management
Shipyard quality management systems are traditionally fragmented and inefficient, often lacking communication across departments and companies. Yard supervisors rely on inefficient paper or excel-based processes that increase costs and delays in the production process.
Overextended project schedule and budget
Schedule and budget control presents an important challenge within the marine industry. The lack of a centralized cost control system and manual reporting and analysis monitoring causes delays in decision-making and higher cost overrun. Many shipyards use ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) for their budget management. They should look for more project-based cost control and change management processes.
Wasted and overrun materials
Excessive material waste has always troubled the traditional marine industry due to consistently poor materials used in construction and design phases. The industry focuses on materials use, which has led to the mass production of vessels with standardized designs and building procedures. Unused materials are often left at the end of shipbuilding projects and discarded. Around 60% of commercial ship's costs are often in materials; managing this portion directly contributes to the project's bottom line and the company's performance.
Lack of structural integrity
Structural integrity issues have long plagued the marine industry. A tiny crack in a ship's structure can lead to flooding and the loss of cargo or even lives, which is why inspecting ships before they set sail is essential. The problem is traditional inspection methods are expensive and time-consuming. Often, crews must empty the whole ship before its inspection. The ship might sit in port for up to two weeks while an inspection occurs. That costs money, not just in lost revenue from being unable to transport cargo but also in storage fees that can add up quickly for businesses that need their ships for regular trips.
Why choose easy-to-integrate solutions?
Digitally integrated solutions use the design basis to provide an extensive portfolio of integrated, pre-configured solutions addressing yards' key work processes across the project lifecycle. They also help combine your project information and techniques to reduce costs and improve productivity.
Top five benefits of well-integrated solutions
1. Integrated engineering design solutions solve problems
Any digital transformation project faces the challenge of integrating silos first. Integrating information on product development is the first step towards a successful digital strategy. The integrated approach to engineering and design can help solve many issues from the initial phases of your digital transformation journey and significantly increase data reliability.
2. Better collaboration within the supply chain including other shipyards
Shipyards worldwide share work to improve efficiency and close the gap on a tight schedule. Still, collaboration becomes difficult when they are not operating simultaneously or on the same schedule. A digital engineering solution allows shipyards to share changes in a visual and real-time format, which helps them collaborate more effectively.
3. Compressed schedule
A well-equipped digital solution bridges the gaps between project schedule, work packages assignment and warehouse material availability to eliminate idle time. The solution also provides a production schedule with individual work center instructions, shortening throughput times and improving resource utilization.
4. Improved material management
An intelligent solution helps achieve significant material optimization by integrating inventory, actual usage and remnant management into the process.
5. Consistent change management
A data-centric solution can consistently manage all production process changes throughout the project. You can calculate the impact of any change to ensure that the project stays on schedule and within budget. Changes can also be recorded and stored using the same process to ensure that the most up-to-date information is always available.
Digital solutions will be the future differentiator
The integration of digital solutions has been the main driver for improvements in efficiency, effectiveness and quality of service in the maritime transport industry. Changes within the industry have led to significant increases in productivity and efficiency. Many factors influence the integration of digital solutions — from data collection and analysis to remote asset management.