Australia is investing in defence capabilities at an unprecedented scale, and the 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR) proves that Australian shipbuilders are at the centre of those capabilities. The goal of this investment is vessels in the water and a naval force ready to support the strategic needs of the nation. Meeting that demand, and specific elements of the DSR, means Australia’s shipbuilders must accelerate their processes, adapt to change, and focus on digital shipbuilding. They must do this despite the challenge of ramping up local production and improving fleet operational effectiveness.
Delivering vessels means consuming, converting, managing, and sharing design, engineering, planning, procurement, and production information for each program and each ship. But the nature of these programs means that millions of digital artefacts and documents will originate from outside Australia, often from disparate and disconnected systems.
Success will depend on managing the digital ship (twin) across the whole lifecycle. Achieving that requires rapidly deploying an information management platform that offers a safe transition from external systems, supports consistent, configuration-controlled data, and embraces adaptability and change. At every stage, looking at how to simplify the conversion and translation of digital information efficiently ensures that production and manufacturing can stay on schedule. One example is automating conversion of existing model information into a format that the shipyard can use.
Government’s prioritization towards getting ships on the water, and meeting capability requirements through life upgrades later-on, requires having a clear picture of the configuration of ships as they sit in-service. Using a format-agnostic, open, and shipbuilding-specific product lifecycle management (PLM) system is one strategy that makes that possible. It intrinsically allows information created for ship construction to directly integrate with other business systems and for reuse in downstream in-service support.
Poor information management is behind many shipyard inefficiencies. Legacy fragmented databases, systems, and technology environment pose a massive barrier to the ramp-up required to meet Defence's aggressive goals. Heeding the timelines demanded by this latest investment means looking towards rapidly deployable solutions that integrate with existing systems and solve today’s inefficiencies but can be incrementally updated to support future demands.
An integrated platform of platforms equips shipyards to bridge the gap between those fragmented systems throughout the project's lifecycle. The platform of platforms approach leverages data, processes, and workflows stored in other platforms by linking them together without disrupting existing system infrastructure at a shipyard. Combined with the PLM acting as the source of truth, it’s possible to build a digital twin in a cohesive way and see the value within months rather than after years of implementation.
Connecting all aspects of the shipbuilding process, from design and engineering to production and maintenance, allows Australian shipbuilders to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and deliver better ships to the Royal Australian Navy. Right now, at these early stages, Australian shipyards are positioned to act as digital leaders in global shipbuilding. Most importantly, they will deliver assets in line with the goals of the DSR – both today and well into the future.
The platform that will allow shipyards to action this approach will be a tightly integrated combination of CAD and PLM that are designed for the Business of Shipbuilding. The entire platform needs to be based on open, accessible technology that can be seamlessly connected to other platforms, processes and tools. SSI has built an Open Shipbuilding Platform consisting of ShipConstructor and ShipbuildingPLM specifically to address this need. In combination, they provide a platform that acts as the source of truth for entire programs, connects to other platforms in the shipyard, and supports the end-to-end design, engineering, and production of a vessel.