Diversification – the technology aspects

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An AVEVA Business Paper

Diversification – the technology aspects - An AVEVA Business Paper

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SummaryIn tough times, businesses seek to diversify into adjacent markets or to apply their skills and resources in new ways. But shipbuilding’s unique nature has traditionally made diversification difficult, more so if its Engineering & Design software cannot readily be applied to different types of project.

This paper examines how the latest generation of marine software overcomes this difficulty by integrating many individual applications and datasets with its counterpart for the plant industry. This provides two valuable business opportunities:

z collaboration with plant industry specialists on complex offshore projects

z the ability to directly apply outfitting skills and tools in plant-based projects such as power barges.

‘In tough times, businesses seek to diversify into adjacent markets or to apply their skills and resources in new ways. But shipbuilding’s unique nature has traditionally made diversification difficult...’

This business paper has been adapted from a paper given at the International Conference on Computer Applications in Shipbuilding (ICCAS). It is reproduced with permission.

Diversification – the technology aspects - An AVEVA Business Paper

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Introduction The recent boom in demand for commercial vessels has been followed by a slump, and a hoped-for upturn in naval orders has failed to materialise. For many shipyards the choice is stark: diversify or die. Frequent announcements of yards securing contracts in the growing offshore sector show that there are opportunities for shipbuilders able to apply both their skills and their technologies to adjacent markets.

A significant obstacle arises where a yard employs engineering and design technologies that may be optimised for the unique requirements of shipbuilding, but can neither readily support the design and construction of anything other than ships, nor enable efficient collaboration with other industries.

It was in anticipation of the expansion of deepwater offshore oil & gas exploration and production that Engineering & Design solution vendors began to integrate technologies for ship and plant design to extend the scope of dedicated shipbuilders’ solutions. Early adopters are now reaping the benefits this brings, both in capabilities and in ease of collaboration with the plant industries.

Key challenges Shipyards seeking to diversify face one or more of the following challenges:

z Project size. Many project opportunities are too large and/or complex for a single shipyard. They demand the ability to partner with other yards, with specialist contractors, or with multiple subcontractors.

z Technology incompatibilities. Efficient collaboration requires that the technologies used across the project support all the disciplines. Historically, shipbuilding software has not supported efficient collaboration even between shipyards. It certainly did not support collaboration between shipyards and EPC contractors, a factor which proved a major problem on the first FPSO projects.

z Unsuitable technologies. Existing software tools may not be adaptable to new types of project.

z Finite resources. The cost of diversification can often be so high that a business is simply unable to reconfigure itself, either at all, or in time to grasp the new opportunities. Business agility requires that shipyards can readily apply their existing facilities and skills to new types of project.

z Unsuitable existing skills. Skills are a critical, costly and long-lead business asset. If they cannot be readily applied to new business opportunities, diversification will fail.

‘For many shipyards the choice is stark: diversify or die...’

To seamlessly support the collaboration of projects with partners in the plant

industry, the shipbuilding industry requires specialist tools.

Diversification – the technology aspects - An AVEVA Business Paper

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Technology Solutions CollaborationHistorically, shipbuilders were essentially self-contained businesses. Collaboration, where it occurred at all, generally involved a few designers being seconded from a subcontractor and using the shipyard’s own facilities. However, as projects have become larger and more complex, this is no longer sufficient and an effective work-sharing solution becomes essential.

Multi-site work-sharing technology was originally developed for the plant industries and has been widely used for over a decade. It is now available for the marine industry, where it overcomes the barriers to collaborative shipbuilding by enabling a single, definitive project model to be worked on concurrently by any number of project partners. In use, this enables, for example, a hull designer to collaborate in real time with an outfitting designer on the other side of the world. Negotiating bulkhead penetrations for equipment foundations, piping or access ways can be performed directly and quickly by the engineers concerned.

For diversification, this same work-sharing technology also enables seamless collaboration between ship designers and plant EPCs. This is key to many offshore opportunities; on deepwater floating facilities, for example, the mooring tower and topsides plant are likely to be designed using AVEVA PDMS™.

Importantly, the software also enables controlled access to defined portions of the project model, so that a shipbuilder can retain control over its valuable Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) while distributing work to subcontractors.

System IntegrationIncreasing offshore project complexity invariably entails the integration of a variety of specialist vendors’ equipment; far more so than in traditional shipbuilding. Equipment items are commonly designed in 3D CAD systems that are inherently incompatible with those used for ship design. In commercial ship design, the usual workaround is to remodel each equipment item in the marine system, but this becomes prohibitively laborious and error-prone for large and complex offshore designs. At AVEVA, we overcame this with an interface application that enables bidirectional model exchange with the leading 3D CAD systems. Fully detailed models can be quickly imported, and behave like native designed objects; they can have attributes assigned to them, such as exclusion zones for accessibility, heat output, mass, and so on.

Project SizeCollaboration invariably implies large and/or complex projects. Clearly, the technologies used must be capable of handling these without hindering productivity. It is a common experience to find applications that eventually impose an upper limit on the size of a project. Such limits often demand the arbitrary division of a complete offshore project into smaller sub-projects simply to maintain an acceptable level of system performance, and hence productivity, for the end-users. But by doing so, users lose an overview of the complete project. In contrast, AVEVA solutions are database-driven and impose no practical limits on project size. Even across a large, multi-site collaborative project, system performance remains unimpaired.

Increasingly, shipbuilders and plant builders should be using compatible software systems.

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Exploiting one’s expertise In any business, maximising the use of hard-won proprietary expertise is essential. Today’s advanced engineering and design solutions support this need across both the vessel and the plant elements of an offshore project. Individual design elements or sub-assemblies can be stored as library parts for repeated use, either on the same project or on subsequent ones. One can similarly reuse hull blocks (complete with their outfitting items) or even entire projects. With the massive cash flows of the oil & gas industry, the reduction that this offers in project completion time represents considerable economic value to the client.

Adapting one’s expertise The cautious shipbuilder may worry that diversification could be a one-way street and that it would become difficult to resume shipbuilding work if skills become too specialised in other areas. With today’s closely integrated marine and plant design solutions, this is actually unlikely because plant layout is essentially the same as outfitting and uses identical design software. Existing skills can be readily applied to plant layout work and are kept current, enabling an easy reversion to ship outfitting when the opportunity arises. Where direct collaboration with a plant EPC is not required, the outfitting design can be delivered to the EPC in the common format used by AVEVA PDMS or AVEVA Everything3D™.

Extending capabilitiesInevitably, any diversification requires new capabilities, or at least the extension of existing ones. The typical offshore project, for example, usually requires more structural steel design than do most conventional ships; elements such as helidecks, flare towers, gantries and so on. While most marine design systems enable this, they are not optimised for the task. The AVEVA Marine™ suite includes a dedicated solution which it shares with AVEVA Plant™, enabling the efficient and highly automated design detailing and fabrication of structural steelwork of virtually unlimited complexity.

Importantly, not only can this increase productivity within the shipyard’s own processes, it further supports collaboration with plant industry partners. In that sector, it is common for steel detailing to be subcontracted to third-party specialists, incurring the risk of undetected clashes arising as the steelwork and plant layout designs diverge. In the AVEVA solution, this is overcome with the Compare & Update function which enables concurrent engineering and design developments to be periodically compared for consistency, and changes accepted or rejected in a controlled manner. This is clearly a valuable capability where, for example, a client may mandate that structural steelwork is handled by a designated third party.

‘The typical offshore project, for example, usually requires more structural steel design than do most conventional ships; elements such as helidecks, flare towers, gantries and so on. While most marine design systems enable this, they are not optimised for the task...’

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Refits and conversions There are both similarities and differences between the marine and plant industries in their approach to in-service modification projects. In both sectors, asset downtime is costly, so there is a premium on rapid, right-first-time work on the physical asset. However, while a vessel may undergo few, but substantial, refits during its life, a typical offshore oil & gas facility may undergo continual revamps and modifications as the nature of the yield changes over time.

In either situation, accurate knowledge of the true as-operating status of the asset is essential, to minimise commercial risk in tendering and physical risk when working on what are invariably hazardous installations in challenging locations. 3D laser scanning technology is the solution of choice for gathering accurate, finely detailed surveys with little or no disruption to normal asset operations and minimal exposure of personnel to site hazards. The rich scan data is, however, of little value without software tools with which to exploit it. AVEVA Marine provides such tools and enables a designer to create new design that fits accurately in situ in the as-built facility. It also enables efficient reverse engineering of intelligent items such as pipes and steel beams from the corresponding parts of the 3D ‘point cloud’.

It is today economically practicable to reverse engineer an accurate, intelligent model of an entire as-operating facility into a 3D design system, providing a foundation for its lifecycle management. Naval authorities have been quick to recognise the potential for this in maximising warship availability.

Shipyards looking to diversify into offshore oil & gas may first be offered refit or conversion orders to test their capability, before being trusted with designing and building a major new unit. Clearly, the yard will wish to demonstrate its capabilities, so becoming skilled in laser scanning and reverse engineering can be a valuable business enabler.

Exploiting project informationOne important difference between the marine and offshore industries is in the nature of the asset handover process. Shipbuilders looking to diversify into offshore should clearly understand their clients’ expectations here and implement effective business processes and Information Management systems to meet them.

Traditionally, on delivery to the owner, a shipbuilder will hand over with the vessel a limited set of drawings and documents for its operation and maintenance. Compiling these ‘user manuals’ is also regarded by the shipyard as an overhead task rather than a value-adding opportunity so, in practice, they may or may not be accurate or complete. Handover is a single event after which the shipbuilder has little or no further interest in the vessel.

In contrast, in the plant industries this ‘over the wall’ style of handover is rapidly being supplanted by a progressive process that begins at an early stage of the project. Handover has ceased to be a single event but is, instead, a sharing of asset information as it becomes sufficiently mature. The client’s asset management system can be progressively populated well in advance of project completion, operational procedures can be defined and personnel trained, so that the asset can quickly be ramped up to full capacity. The financial benefits to the asset owner can be considerable, both in earlier revenue generation and in risk reduction.

Achieving this requires the use of powerful Information Management technology that integrates and validates asset information. AVEVA NET™ is widely used in the oil & gas industry for this purpose. However, this should be viewed, not as an additional cost burden for securing offshore projects, but as an opportunity to provide more value-adding services that form a competitive differentiator in both offshore and ship projects. Moreover, the technology also enables more efficient business processes during the design and construction of the asset, providing an opportunity for a shipbuilder to become even more competitive in their core business.

‘Handover has ceased to be a single event but is instead a sharing of asset information as it becomes sufficiently mature...’

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ConclusionsShipbuilders may be diversifying into adjacent markets, such as offshore, as a short-term survival tactic, but doing so successfully can make them more capable and competitive in the long term.

Diversification requires the use of engineering, design and Information Management technologies that facilitate the use of existing skills on new types of project. These technologies exist, in the form of a proven suite of applications which, while dedicated to the unique needs of shipbuilding, also enable efficient, global collaboration with other shipyards and with the plant industries through the use of common tools and database structures. The most competitive shipbuilders are already using these applications.

Diversification can be seen to be an opportunity to further improve business processes and to develop complementary skills and capabilities which increase flexibility and competitive advantage; valuable business assets in themselves which will also enable a rapid response to the next upturn in shipbuilding.

‘Diversification can be seen to be an opportunity to further improve business processes and to develop complementary skills and capabilities which increase flexibility and competitive advantage; valuable business assets in themselves which will also enable a rapid response to the next upturn in shipbuilding...’

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