Pre-outfitting of a platform supply vessel in section unit assembly stage

Abstract

The shipbuilding industry is one of the heavy industries which directly has an impact on the micro and macroeconomic systems, through its power of evolution and the high amount of money invested in development, innovation and, last but not least, in workforce. It is well known the that the price of one ship is quite constant, as there are no big differences between shipyards. So, to resist in this market, the shipyards started to think of new ways of reducing the production costs, so they still remain competitive on the market. Thus, a permanent concern is the optimization of all technological stages, either on the part of the ship hull assembly or on the part of hull outfitting, in order to obtain a final product that satisfies the required quality level at the lowest possible price. Shipyards were forced to improve their business plan with assessing their own production processes, by reducing, as far as possible, the time on each of the intermediate cycle of production. All the modern shipyards, from all over the world, have now understood that, by adopting the concept of pre-outfitting or advance outfitting, the vessel building cycle time can be reduced and a substantial saving of costs, along with other benefits, can be achieved. This study shows an analysis that aims to improve the efficiency of productivity, effect of the new practice of pre-outfitting and piping assembly operations vs. old practice in outfitting. A calculation of the time saved by applying the pre-outfitting method for the engine room is presented.