Contents

1.0 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................2
2.0 PROBLEMS FACED BY SHIPYARD.....................................................................................3
3.0 SHIPYARD LAYOUT....................................................................................................................4
3.1 Shipyard Layout Design..............................................................................................................4
4.0 IMPROVEMENT PLANS OF SHIPYARD..............................................................................7
4.1Shipyard Layout before Improvement Made................................................................................8
4.2 Suggestion to Improve Shipyard Layout..............................................................................10
4.3 Berthing and Docking Arrangement..........................................................................................11
4.3.1 Mechanized slipway.....................................................................................................11
4.3.2 Synchrolift..........................................................................................................................12
5.0 SHIPYARD FACILITIES.....................................................................................................................13
6.0 MATERIAL FLOW............................................................................................................................16
6.1 Example workflow for Hull Construction..................................................................................16
6.2 Key Factors to Make Shipbuilding More Efficient....................................................................17
7.0 CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................19
8.0 REFERENCE..............................................................................................................................20

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1.0 INTRODUCTION
A nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade.
Companies gain advantage against the world’s best competitors because of pressure and
challenge. They benefit from having strong domestic rivals, aggressive home-based suppliers,
and demanding local customers. In a world of increasingly global competition, nations have
become more, not less, important. As the basis of competition has shifted more and more to
the creation and assimilation of knowledge, the role of the nation has grown. Competitive
advantage is created and sustained through a highly localized process. Differences in national
values, culture, economic structures, institutions, and histories all contribute to competitive
success. There are striking differences in the patterns of competitiveness in every country; no
nation can or will be competitive in most industries. Ultimately, nations succeed in particular
industries because their home environment is the most forward-looking, dynamic, and
challenging.

An excellent ship construction layout employing current cost effective and efficient
methodologies, ship construction standards, and ship construction concepts constituted the
best approach to modern ship construction of the proposed facility. The basic design
requirements and specifications and innovativeness formed the basis of the design. However,
there is often an excess of movement of people and movement of raw materials, semi-
finished and finished products, causing many disorders and increasing the risk of breakage
and accidents, as well as costs and production time. Through an appropriate physical
arrangement, the company or facility can achieve greater economy and productivity, based on
the willingness of the instruments of labour and through the use of improved equipment, and
also the human factor assigned in the system.

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2.0 PROBLEMS FACED BY SHIPYARD
1. Delay delivery Issue

A timely delivery is a major factor of shipbuilding because of the involvement of huge

capital. Hours passed in traffic jam, days pass away on moving files, and projects are
delayed. In general shipyards are often not able to match the delivery time of a new ship
building with that of other countries. Most of the local shipyards do not follow the modern
job evaluation and execution technique (such as PERT, CPM). The use of computers in ship
design and manufacture has the potential to improve productivity significantly. However, the
successful integration of computers into and between shipyards, the design agent, and
requires organizational and procedural changes. Ways to harness the potential of computers
in shipyards need to be outlined and pursued.

2. Technical Issue

There is insufficiency in the number of ancillary industries to support the shipbuilding

industry as backward linkage by providing service and supplying ships’ components. The
shipyard is having lack of research and development (R&D), which ultimately fail to bring
about any innovation and technological development for price competitiveness in
international ship markets. Lack of adequate and expert design firms and expertise in design
are an impediment for high value added product. Moreover, most of the local shipyards are
lacking of modern shipbuilding tools, machineries and technology. At the same time lack of
expert machine operators is found in the most local shipyards.

3. Integration of Design and Production Issue

The degree of integration of the engineering phases of ship production, ship design,
production planning, early material ordering, and production engineering and employee
training is a major determinant of production efficiency. These engineering phases are
segregated in shipbuilding to a greater degree than in some other countries. Further, such
separation of engineering phases does not occur in many other industries. Assessments are
needed of how the lack of integration affects productivity, the extent to which it is difficult to
introduce productivity innovation and how more complete integration of the engineering
phases of ship production can be achieved.

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3.0 SHIPYARD LAYOUT
Shipyard layout is one of the important elements that determine that productivity of the
shipyard. In general, a shipyard has a few building berth and uses extensive areas around
them from the construction of large components of steel hulls. Building berths slope
downward towards the water way, to facilitate launching. Building basins, or dry docks, are
sometimes used for the constructions of very large vessels, because it is convenient to lower
rather than to lift, large assemblies, and this method also eliminates problems associated with
launching. Extensive water frontage water for the building berths is unnecessary.

3.1 Shipyard Layout Design

Production capacity of shipyard is, in most case, defined by the resource secured, the yard
area, and especially the proximity degree of each factories and work stages. The problem is
that most resources and factories are hard to be changed from the initially installed and built
status even though the need for the increase of the production capacity is taken place.
Therefore, initial layout design of the shipyard has to be conducted with a reasonable input
data and a logical methodology. The design phases of the shipyard layout design are shown in
Table 1. As shown here, shipyard layout design phases are divided as a preliminary design,
basic design and detail design. This division is similar with that of the ship design process.
The target phase of this is the preliminary design, which determine a rough layout of the main
shops & work stages (Indoor shops, Painting shop, Outfitting shop, Pre-Erection (PE)
workstage, etc.) considering the capacity of the dry-dock and the ship construction cycle. The
scope of this phase is indicated with the shipbuilding process in Figure 1.

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 Figure 1: Shipbuilding processes and the related capacity and resources.

Figure 2: The Layout Logic

Phase Object

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 Phase Preliminar  Design a rough layout (concept layout) of the main shop
1 y design & workstage (Indoor shops, Painting shop, Outfitting
shop, PE workstage, etc.) considering the capacity of
the dry-dock (input) and the ship construction cycle
(e.g. 1 ship / 2 week)
Phase Basic
2 design  Simulate the concept layout considering a ship
block data and transportation, in order to define
the capacity of each shop and inter-operability

 Make a modified layout from the concept layout,

which can satisfy the requirements (production
volume, lead time per ship, etc) of the shipyard
owner

Phase Detail
3 design o Design each shop and workstage in detail level
o Flow production line
o Design a number of the block assembly line and
the configuration of each line
o Workstage
o Define the location and the arrangement of each
workstage
o Design the number & size of each workstage

Table 1: Design Phases of Shipyard Layout

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4.0 IMPROVEMENT PLANS OF SHIPYARD
Efficiencies are achieved in the functional processes within physical locations and the virtual
data and information system at the shipyard shown schematically in a block diagram. Major
functional processes are overlaid on the shipyard layout drawing. These four categories and
estimated efficiency gains are based on improvements achieved at other shipyards. The
development plan design:

1. Provides quality covered repair/ construction halls with:

 installed cranes along with easier,

 faster vessel positioning for work and access by workers improving efficiency 15 to
20 percent over current repair
 primarily in surface preparation and coating
 enables improved on-module
 block-outfitting and erection for new-build projects.

2. Optimizes flow (horizontal and vertical) of materials and people for:

 Fabrication
 Assembly
 Repair

Gains of an additional 5 to 10 percent efficiency are expected. Detailed choices come from
good simulation modeling and optimization with special focus on multiple projects working
simultaneously then locating workstations and specific equipments optimally.

3. Provides faster, more accurate and more mobile information gathering and flow for
 Estimating
 Planning
 Scheduling
 employee time and attendance
 job order execution
4. Suggests choices of specific repair and new construction technologies: equipment and
tooling: can improve an additional 5 to 10 percent overall on those specific operations
affected.

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 4.1Shipyard Layout before Improvement Made

Figure 3: Present
Layout of
Shipyard

Figure 4: Detailed
Present
Layout of
Shipyard

Figure 3 and figure 4 shows the present layout features of Shipyard. It could be seen that:

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  Construction Bays are either side of the slipway.
 There is ample amount of skids for module assemble but scattered.
 There is a huge distance between stockyard and main-yard.
 The spaces between gate and main-yard is unutilized (present of trees).

Limits to present shipyard are:

 Too much space constraints makes the production to be limited.

 Lack of dry-dock decrease the capability for advance outfitting.

4.2 Suggestion to Improve Shipyard Layout

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 Figure 5: The improved suggestion Layout

Figure 5 shows the suggestion of improvement plan made on shipyard. The details are as
follows. The number of skids are increased near to main yard. This is done to reduce travel
time. Besides, main office building plays an important part in material flow. Thus, the office
is shifted to strategic area so that it is easier to give direct access of main yard. This could
make the management easy to monitor construction bays. Unused areas near construction
bays should be used as place to set up grit blasting. The extra spaces in the shipyard should
be used in efficient way so that it could make the work flow fast and product could be
finished just in time. Faster production line could enhance customer trust over the company
and this could lead to more business chances.

4.3 Berthing and Docking Arrangement

Mechanically operated slipping facilities may be divided into three categories for all vessels
up to 500 tonnes displacement. The three methods are:

• mechanized slipway;

• synchrolift or ship lift

4.3.1 Mechanized slipway

Figure 6: The principle of a mechanized slipway

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 Figure 7: The steel cradle used on a mechanized slipway

The vessel to be slipped is floated over the cradle and secured. The cradle is then winched up
the slope until it is clear of the water and then locked in the desired position. The vessel stays
on the cradle throughout the maintenance period and all servicing is carried out at the water’s
edge. Some mechanized slipways cover the work area with a permanent building, while
others with sliding or even inflatable structures to protect the work area from the harshest
weather conditions only. The steel cradle runs on foundation beams laid to the appropriate
slope.

4.3.2 Synchrolift
Until the advent of high-capacity mobile gantries, synchrolifts were the standard equipment
of established boatyards (Figures 8 and 9). Synchrolifts, however, have the capacity to lift up
to 1 000 tonnes and this makes any yard equipped with a synchrolift able to offer its services
to a wider range of vessels. In a synchrolift the vessels are floated over the transfer cradle that
sits on the elevating platform. The platform with the cradle and vessel on top is then hoisted
out of the water and brought level with the transfer rails. A tractor can then push the cradle
down the line to a repair bay which may be an open work area or a covered workshop. The
number of vessels handled at the yard at any one time is a function of the number of cradles
and/or work area available.

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 Figure 8 Figure 9

5.0 SHIPYARD FACILITIES

1. Welding

Welding is one of the most widely used hot-work processes used in the shipbuilding

industry. The development in welding technology has enabled the industry to produce
perfectly watertight and oil-tight joints. Welded joints as compared to riveted joints are
much easier to produce and they reduce the cycle time of the project. Welded joints have
also resulted in reduced steel weight and require less to negligible maintenance compared
to rivet joints. The major contribution of welding technology to the shipbuilding industry
is the possibility of producing smooth hull surfaces, therefore reducing the bare hull
resistance and power requirements considerably.

2. Work benches and bending

The bend test is a simple and inexpensive qualitative test that can be used to evaluate
both the ductility and soundness of a material. It is often used as a quality control test
for butt-welded joints, having the advantage of simplicity of both test piece and
equipment. No expensive test equipment is needed, test specimens are easily prepared
and the test can, if required, be carried out on the shop floor as a quality control test to
ensure consistency in production. The bend test uses a coupon that is bent in three

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 point bending to a specified angle. The outside of the bend is extensively plastically
deformed so that any defects in, or embrittlement of, the material will be revealed by
the premature failure of the coupon.

3. Milling
Milling is the most common form of machining, a material removal process, which
can create a variety of features on a part by cutting away the unwanted material. The
milling process requires a milling machine, workpiece, fixture, and cutter. The
workpiece is a piece of pre-shaped material that is secured to the fixture, which itself
is attached to a platform inside the milling machine. The cutter is a cutting tool with
sharp teeth that is also secured in the milling machine and rotates at high speeds. By
feeding the workpiece into the rotating cutter, material is cut away from this
workpiece in the form of small chips to create the desired shape. 

4. Grinding :
Grinding is a class of machining operations that are specifically used to cut a hole into
a workpiece. Machining, a material removal process, creates features on a part by cutting
away the unwanted material and requires a machine, workpiece, fixture, and cutting tool.
Hole-making can be performed on a variety of machines, including general machining
equipment such as CNC milling machines or CNC turning machines. Specialized
equipment also exists for hole-making, such as drill presses or tapping machines. The
workpiece is a piece of pre-shaped material that is secured to the fixture, which itself is
attached to a platform inside the machine. The cutting tool is a cylindrical tool with sharp
teeth that is secured inside a piece called a collet, which is then attached to the spindle,
which rotates the tool at high speeds. By feeding the rotating tool into the workpiece,
material is cut away in the form of small chips to create the desired feature. 

5. Assembly
Once the plates and frames are prepared and given the required shape, they are
welded according to the structural drawings prepared by the design department of the
shipyard. The hull is divided longitudinally into blocks, and each block is again
divided into assemblies and sub-assemblies.

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After plates and sections are machined, they are ready to be welded into two
dimensional structures called sub-assemblies. This is carried out in the Prefabrication
Shops. A sub assembly would consist of a plate (Straight of curved), and its
corresponding strengthening stiffeners welded to it. For example, for a particular
block, a panel of outer bottom shell and outer bottom longitudinals would form a sub
assembly. Assemblies may be prepared by manual welding or automatic welding,
depending on the complexity of the job and the efficiency of the shipyard. Often, flat
panels are manufactured by automatic welding, where the stiffeners are marked on the
panel, and welded by robotically controlled welding torches. The assemblies are
erected and welded to their adjacent structures in the above sequence. The sequence is
pre-decided in the design and modelling stage using CAD/CAM optimisation
techniques, so that minimum shifting of assemblies are required, and proper use of
carnage facilities is ensured. Once all blocks are erected based on their welding
sequences, they are now ready to be joined. This process is carried out at a different
site.

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6.0 MATERIAL FLOW
The speed, direction and efficiency of material flow is crucial. This depend on the type of
transportation employed. Ideally, the handling of material should be kept to a minimum. For
an efficient flow process it is necessary that the correct item is deposited in the correct place
at the correct time using least effort and cost.

6.1 Example workflow for Hull Construction

The hull of a ship is constructed (in a series of stages outlined above and) such that
production is continuous. Many different layouts are possible, but the best layout is that in
which the materials travel the shortest possible distance with minimum handling. The
simplest journey results from straight line travel and the ideal arrangement of the full
construction yard is to provide unit-directional material flow.

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 Figure 10: Material Flow of Hull Construction

Such an ideal arrangement is very often not obtainable due to yard surroundings. Obvious
alternatives are ‘L’ or ‘U’ shaped flows dependent on the physical environment and areas
available and could be visualised as shown in Figure 11.

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 Figure 11: ‘L’ or ‘U’ shaped alternative

6.2 Key Factors to Make Shipbuilding More Efficient

Factor 1: Using 3D CAD and drawing review
3D CAD design can take away lots of obstructions in the production phase: “In my
experience 3-D modeling led to vast improvements in production efficiency.” A detailed
drawing review with all external stakeholders (ship owner, but also classification and
regulation authorities) can also prevent lots of rework.

Factor 2: Production planning

Upfront production planning is considered important in an efficient shipbuilding process:
“The ship owners need to know what they want build down to the minutest detail. The
shipyard then must plan how to build it in great detail.”

Factor 3: Advanced infrastructure and logistics

Modern shipbuilding infrastructure enables high quality production and just-in-time delivery.
A solution lies in production automation: “Implementation of automation may help to save
valuable time and reduce human error. It can also be linked up with the design department.”
Fabrication shops should be designed in a way that material handling time is minimized, in
which logistical solutions can play an important role.

Factor 4: Aligning internal communication

Good internal communication and feedback is crucial to every step in the shipbuilding
production process. Upfront production and operational feedback in the design phase
prevents costly revisions and rework at a later stage. Consistent information sharing between
different departments is key: “With today’s improvement in design and production
technology, the complete process could be streamlined by using already available
information, rather than different CAD systems and spreadsheets.”

Factor 5: Excellent leadership and workforce

Everything comes to be executed by human. Successful shipyards rely on excellent
leadership and a skilled workforce. This may seem obvious, but many shipyards are still

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lacking in having the right people at key positions. “A smart CEO attracts, retains and
protects bright talents - the most important scarce resource in the world.”

7.0 CONCLUSION
There are many factors that play a part in creating a competitive and profitable company.
Managing the supply chain is one of the biggest impacts a company can use to make the
changes needed to improve its current state. With the market being limited and practically
unprofitable at this point for shipbuilding, shipbuilders must take the necessary steps to
transform their current practices. Current practices of shipbuilding is slowly driving the
market down and putting the customers in a precarious predicament with Congress. But if the
shipbuilder improves its processes which will in turn improve the quality and cost of
producing ships, the market will be on the right path for competing with other industrial
sectors. Material management is just a portion of the supply chain, but efficient management
of material will prove to be very beneficial to the entire supply chain.

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8.0 REFERENCE
 https://ivypanda.com/essays/shipyard-design-and-layout/
 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2092678216303740
 https://www.scribd.com/presentation/83359601/Shipyard-Layout-Improvement-
Chowgule-Co-Ltd
 http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a451486.pdf
 https://www.slideshare.net/agnikhil/shipyard-layout-improvement
 https://www.damen.com/en/companies/damen-shipyards-mangalia
 https://chibekxlite.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/chapter_2_shipyard-layout.pdf
 http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1883e/i1883e08.pdf

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