The Digital Transformation of the American Shipyard

In this video series, our Industries eXcellence experts invite you on a journey through time in order to highlight the diverse types of customers we work with and the massive technological changes that have shaped American manufacturing in the last century. In our third episode, Matt Scanlan, Associate Partner and Account Executive at Engineering Industries eXcellence, explores the past, present, future and digital transformation of the American shipbuilding and repair industry.

Interested in speaking to one of our experts? Contact us at info@indx.com.

Full Transcript

Hi, my name is Matt Scanlan. I'm an Associate Partner at Engineering Industries eXcellence. One of the industries that we've been working more and more with over the last years is the shipbuilding industry. This is a very unique industry. The products that they produce are at a much larger scale and complexity than what we typically see in manufacturing. When ships that are being built or repaired, it can take months, if not years, for these products to be completed. For these reasons, we have always seen very unique challenges at shipyards.

Shipbuilding has always been an important sector in industrial America, even from our origins in the colonies. Building ships for transportation and defense has been a critical aspect for the success of this nation. Even today in modern shipbuilding, it has many important effects on our economy, on how we conduct business as well as on the defense of our country.

Today's shipyards are facing many different challenges, mostly because of the complexity and the amount of time needed to construct many of the ships used in Naval defense or transportation, as well as due to the amount of work required to repair and overhaul these ships. What we see at shipyards is hundreds, if not thousands, of laborers having to work together in order to meet very difficult time constraints. Many times, a delay in one area can have a cascading effect and cause major delays downstream and for the overall production of a ship. So, shipyards are experiencing major difficulties in the scheduling and coordination of the many different activities that are found throughout an entire shipyard. I'm very proud that Engineering Industries eXcellence is contributing to the digital transformation of American shipyards and offering solutions to these complex challenges.

One way that Engineering Industries eXcellence is contributing to shipyards is through the optimization of shipyard facilities. We are working with manufacturers and repair facilities to help them identify and implement ways to improve their processes and accomplish their activities in a faster, more efficient method. For example, one customer that we've been working with is an American manufacturer and industry leader in commercial vessels. This global manufacturer is known to build some of the most technologically advanced ships in the world. Our team delivered a project leveraging advanced simulation tools to help this customer virtually model and evaluate the layout and activities of their shipyard in order to increase foresight and efficiency in their complex assembly and production processes. We were also able to help them in the allocation of their workforce. This is one of the major challenges that this customer faced due to an ever-evolving schedule and the requirement that operators in their workforce be at different buildings. Thanks to our digital initiative, we were able to help and enable them to allocate and advance where those operators and workers should be attending.

I believe that there’s going to be some radical changes in the shipyard industry in the future, especially in how ships are being manufactured and repaired. We are going to see more automated processes and more robotics across all aspects of the shipyard. Many of the processes today are very much manual. We still see a lot of welding and a lot of operators performing manual activities. We know there are huge opportunities to use robotics and automated machines to help facilitate these processes, both from an efficiency perspective as well as from a safety perspective. Ultimately, we aim to deliver the “Smart Shipyard” of the future. There are many advancements in technologies out there today that can be used to improve how shipyards are operating, and we believe we can help the industry in this transformation. Engineering Industries eXcellence is proud to bring the capabilities shipbuilders need to make real their vision for the future.