Industry Perspectives on Digital Tools and Integration for Multiparty Shipbuilding
Janica A. Bronson, Icaro A. Fonseca, Gökce Yilmaz, Maria Jose Legaz Almanza, Henrique Gaspar_
European shipbuilding’s multiparty strategies create complex data integration challenges that are often not experienced by more centralized industries. This study evaluates digital tool requirements through case studies with two European shipbuilding companies. We set the context for the case studies by reviewing the current digital landscape in terms of tools and an example of information architecture used in the industry. Then, we decompose and specify the concept of “data integration” based on related functionalities found in the literature. The data handling processes in both companies are mapped and used as a basis to identify and rank each company’s needs concerning their digital process. Finally, the needs are mapped back to the integration functionalities identified in the literature using Systems Engineering House of Quality method. We find that as process and design ownership become more distributed, the effectiveness of conventional centralized approaches diminishes, highlighting the importance of information architecture aligning with organizational and shipbuilding strategies and with their level of design ownership. As an alternative, we suggest investigation of federation-based information architectures enabling autonomous systems to cooperate while maintaining data sovereignty.
Keywords
shipbuilding; systems engineering; computers in design; computers in construction; modernization; design (vessels)