Virginia Digital Shipbuilding Program (VDSP): Building an Agile Modern Workforce to Improve Performance in the Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Industry

Industry 4.0 is the latest stage in the Industrial Revolution and is reflected in the digital transformation and use of emergent technologies including the Internet of Things, Big Data, Robotic automation of processes, 3D printing and additive manufacturing, drones and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the manufacturing industry. The implementation of these technologies in the Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Industry is currently in a nascent stage. Considering this, there is huge potential to increase cost savings, decrease production timelines, and drive down inefficiencies in Lifecyle management of ships. However, the implementation of these Industry 4.0 technologies is hindered by a noticeable gap in workforce capability and capacity. The shipbuilding and ship repair industry is projected to lose approximately 33% of skilled workforce and 48% of management by 2028. With an aging workforce and an incoming digital generation that excels in tech savviness, flexibility, global thinking, and multi-tasking it is crucial to be innovative in workforce development. The Virginia Digital Shipbuilding Program responds to this need by providing a process and platform to address education, training, adoption of innovative new technology and the ability to provide real-time solutions to current and future industry problems. This paper will focus on the three pillars of Digital Shipbuilding – Career Pathway Mapping and Curriculum Development, Outreach and Workforce Development, and Research and Development. Additionally, this paper will address how the team is ensuring that stackable, transferable education and certification processes are implemented between military and industry to facilitate the transition of veterans to the civilian workforce

China’s Global Navy—Today’s Challenge for the United States and the U.S. Navy

The PRC continues to build a naval force that, if left unchallenged, will be increasingly capable of achieving sea control in the global maritime commons as early as 2030, and potentially achieving sea superiority by 2049

2015 Status Report on Major Defence Equipment Procurements

Federal elections may be good for democracy, but the campaigns — particularly the lengthy one recently held in Canada — can be crippling for plans to better arm our military. Just before the election was called, there were public signs of important progress being made in what has long been a frustratingly slow and bureaucratically complex procurement process. But then the campaign left the Department of National Defence and other federal departments unable to secure approvals from either a defence minister or the Treasury Board, until the election ended and the new prime minister appointed the current cabinet. There had already been upheaval prior to that: In the first seven months of 2015, the three senior leaders at the Canadian Forces and the Defence Department (including the minister) had been replaced, along with many other people critical to the procurement process. In addition, there had been changes in the Public Works Department and the Defence Procurement Strategy Secretariat. Frustrating and disappointing delays have long been a matter of course in Canada’s defence procurement process. In 2014/15, the number of ministerial or Treasury Board approvals to allow projects to proceed was half of that in 2009/10. Yet the demand for approvals has not abated. In addition to the turnover of key figures involved in the procurement and approval process, delays have come from a number of major steps added to the process, making an already lengthy and complex system even more so. To be sure, these steps were added in the pursuit of improved financial management and project management, with the aim of addressing longstanding problems. But it will take years to see if those objectives have been realized. An irony here is that the budget for military procurement has increased. Between 2004 and 2009, the Defence Department’s procurement budget nearly doubled. But the funding was never matched by the capacity to manage it. In 2003, the Material Group had a ratio of 2,600 staff for every $1 billion in procurement funds. By 2009, the ratio had become 1,800 staff for every$1 billion in procurement funds. Since then, the ratio has only gotten substantially worse. New systems now require extensive analysis to determine if  a more intensive Treasury Board review is required. A recently created panel designed to provide a “third-party challenge function” on requirements for major procurements has created some confusion among officials as to what documentation they should be producing to support procurement initiatives. And the panel’s terms of reference are extensive, ranging from evaluating a project’s alignment with government policy and the level of its fit with allies’ capabilities, to the role of Canadian suppliers and the anticipated support concept. Still, there are some indications that changes enacted in 2014 to the procurement process may eventually help mitigate delays in the future. There are continual improvements being made to the way the Defence Department conducts project costing as well as how the Treasury Board Secretariat evaluates the costs, which will help improve the compatibility between estimates and newly introduced frameworks. New methods of better prioritizing projects have also been introduced. And there are plans underway intended to reduce the time involved in the department’s internal approval processes. For now, however, these attempts at improvement have been focused on the lower-dollar-figure approvals done by the minister. It remains to be seen if, first, they work, and secondly, if they can then be used to facilitate Treasury Board approvals, as well

2016 Status Report on Major Equipment Procurement

The Department of National Defence made some progress in procurement in 2016 despite obstacles that included a continued drop in spending, the advent of a new federal Liberal government and uncertainty over the outcome of the Defence Policy Review. Four trends affected defence acquisitions in 2016. These include an ongoing slippage in recapitalizing the Canadian Armed Forces, some encouraging moves made on the shipbuilding and fighter jet files, mixed progress on implementing the 2014 Defence Procurement Strategy, and uncertainty over the Defence Policy Review. It is also too early to tell how the Trudeau government’s Policy on Results, known as the “deliverology” approach, will play out for defence procurement. However, Budget 2016’s major focus was not on defence, and it shifted some funding for capital equipment to a new endpoint of 2045. This suggests that delay in the overall defence procurement program continues. While the Liberals kept their pledge to make investment in the Royal Canadian Navy a priority, they also made good last year on a negative promise – not to purchase the F-35 stealth fighter bomber. However, further slowing things is the Liberals’ refusal to launch a competition to replace it until the Defence Policy Review is published. The government has made this situation more fraught with its intention to buy 18 Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets as interim aircraft, since Liberal policy requires the Royal Canadian Air Force to be capable of meeting both NORAD’s and NATO’s operational needs simultaneously. Prior to the release of the new defence policy, both the interim and permanent fighter aircraft projects lacked adequate funding. They were among several large projects that have been approved, but have not yet moved to the contract stage, and whose budgets were inadequate to move forward. Adding to this mix is the fact that a government-wide effort initiated in 2014 to streamline the defence procurement process made no progress in 2016, and a significant number of other prospective projects were not included in the DND investment plan. The subsequent Defence Policy Review has addressed the funding issues, but they were problematic throughout 2016. Not all is gloom and doom, however. A contract for 16 fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft was awarded, modernization of all of the Halifax-class frigates was completed last year, the number of light armoured vehicles deployed in the field rose from 64 to 262, 10 maritime helicopters were added to the fleet in December, and the new medium-to-heavy lift helicopters carried out their first mission by responding to the Fort McMurray wildfires

Research on classification and navigational risk factors of intelligent ship

Based on combing the concept and development of intelligent ship, this paper brings forward the summary and classification of intelligent ships proposed by different institutions, and the main classification schemes are compared accordingly. Then one of these classification schemes is selected to study what are the key navigational risks under each grading level, with a detailed analysis of these risk factors. Finally, the index system of navigational risk factors for intelligent ships under different classification standards is constructed to lay a foundation for a further study of intelligent ship safe navigation, and at the same time avoid some risk factors in advance for the maritime management department, ship management companies, and ship design and research institutes

TOWARD SHIPBUILDING 4.0 - AN INDUSTRY 4.0 CHANGING THE FACE OF THE SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY

The Shipbuilding 4.0 at the principles of the Industry 4.0 will transform the design, manufacturing, operation, shipping, services, production systems, maintenance and value chains in the all aspects of the shipbuilding industry. Over the last few years, the fourth industrial revolution has spread in almost all industries. The whole world is talking about Industry 4.0 which has increased implication in the manufacturing process and the future of the work. The impact of the Shipbuilding 4.0 will be significant. In the past, shipbuilding industry where continuously improved with new machines, software and new implemented organizational restructuring. In today shipbuilding industry, there are three main problems that are considered; production efficiency, the ship safety, cost efficiency and energy conservation and environmental protection. In order to create new value, the ship must become a Smart Ship capable of “thinking”, and to be produced in Smart Shipbuilding Process. The aim of this article is a review of the present academic and industrial progress of this new industrial revolution wave in the shipbuilding sector called Shipbuilding 4.0 (Shipping 4.0, Maritime 4.0, Shipyard 4.0). Reviewed publications were analyzed different topics and level of improvements in the industrial aspects of the society. The implementation of the Shipbuilding 4.0 in the shipbuilding industry, presents the future, creating new value in the process, creating new demands with reduction in production and operational cost while increasing production efficiency

Knowledge-Based Engineering in the design for manufacture of prefabricated façades: current gaps and future trends

The use of prefabricated façades provides a timely means to increase efficiency in the delivery of buildings, while maximising the expected environmental service performance. In order to achieve high performance and low cost, these products require manufacturability and supply chain knowledge to be integrated earlier than usual in the design process. Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) applications can potentially fulfil this need by providing a digital Product Model that informs designers about manufacturability aspects and expected performance. This paper explores the currently-available digital tools, as well as KBE and its applicability in façade design. It is first demonstrated that there is a fundamental gap in state-of-the-art digital tools: rather than integrating design principles and manufacturing constraints, existing and emerging tools continue to focus on single-disciplines with no consideration for the actual manufacturing stage. The applicability of KBE is then evaluated by reviewing the current use of this approach in the building and other industries, namely, aerospace and shipbuilding. It is found that, although KBE is rarely used in facade design, there are significant opportunities for it to be applied in this sector, due to the similarity in terms of design tasks and priorities with the two other industries reviewed in this paper.The authors would like to thank the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) and Laing O’Rourke Plc for supporting the present research programme

Military Transformation and the Defense Industry after Next

Though still adjusting to the end of the Cold War, the defense industry is now confronted with the prospect of military transformation. Since the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, many firms have seen business improve in response to the subsequent large increase in the defense budget. But in the longer run, the defense sector\u27s military customers intend to reinvent themselves for a future that may require the acquisition of unfamiliar weapons and support systems.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/usnwc-newport-papers/1016/thumbnail.jp

Knowledge as an Organizational Asset for Managing Complex Projects: The Case of Naval Platforms

Knowledge management (KM) involves learning from past experiences to avoid or correct scope misalignments, quality deviations, safety problems, time delays and/or cost overruns. KM is frequently materialized as a risk management (RM) plan. An RM plan allows for anticipating, avoiding, mitigating, or reducing potential problems impacting project performance. However, despite their high complementarity, KM and RM are not the same, nor share the same purpose. In the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, managing complex projects involves many KM-related challenges, such as differential competitiveness enhancement and value chain streamlining. Naval platforms are complex projects that require the integration of multiple sources of knowledge and information. They also need to keep on integrating latest digital technology innovations in their production processes. In this context, streamlining the requirements management may become a differential asset for project stakeholders of naval platforms. Namely, enhancing requirements management can make the customers' needs easier to meet, shorten the projects duration, reduce costs, optimize resources, and allow for higher flexibility. However, requirements management has KM as pre-requisite and RM as consequence. Unfortunately, potential synergies between KM and RM have remained largely unexplored in the project management literature, and so has requirements management as a potential bridge between both concepts. In this paper, a holistic model for shipbuilding organizations linking KM and RM is proposed. The model draws from existing KM and RM models while considering organizational factors, technological platforms, and competitiveness factors. A case study of a naval platform showing the model's applicability is provided. It is shown how the model can allow shipbuilding companies to sustain a competitive advantage by facilitating more robust decision making in dynamic project environments. Furthermore, the model also facilitates the identification of the companies' core competences to reach and keep a strong position in current global markets