FKAB was awarded its first design contract in China from Shanghai Edward Shipbuilding in 1998. The list of contracts was further extended, and this flying start in China triggered the interest for a Chinese operation. The DF-Marine office in Dalian was opened in 2001, and was extended with a branch office in Shanghai early 2005.

The future of FKAB will depend on the ability to adapt to the increasing Chinese activities, the development and cooperation with DF-Marine as well as investing and developing modern, state-of-the-art working methods, and design tools.

The Chinese shipbuilding industry
The rapidly growing Chinese shipbuilding industry is impressive and has established itself as a major international player. China is already number three in the world and will most probably climb towards the top. New yards are established, old yards moving from city centres to new locations, older and smaller yards are upgraded, and so on. This may lead to problems in areas such as general management capacity, lack of design capacity, knowledge and skilled labour.

We have also seen the importance of good relations between owner and shipyard; some owners are making considerable efforts to assist yards with references, advice and guidance leading to improved progress.

Co-operation FKAB and DF-MARINE
FKAB is confident that the investment in DF-Marine has been right. Not only does it generate profitable activity for DFMarine and FKAB, it also gives support to other business areas of the Swedish parent company, the Mattsson Group, through assistance from our new Shanghai office (sourcing components, marketing activities etc).

The Chinese staff is trained at FKAB in Sweden and have Swedish project managers (for larger orders) at the DF-Marine offices. We are also performing considerable design work for FKAB and other European customers, whereby the staff learn to follow western project management, planning and so on. Existing activities will be further developed, such as the introduction of a modern 3D design tool – IntelliShip, Nauticus Early Design and Smart Plant P&ID.

We expect tough competition and a challenging business environment, but are confident that we can create added value for our main customers such as Chinese shipyards performing technically advanced orders and European owners building new ships and converting or repairing ships in China.

3D design tool
In 2004, FKAB and DF-Marine decided to invest in a modern 3D design tool. They decided on IntelliShip, Nauticus Early Design and Smart Plant P&ID supported by DNV Software and Intergraph. The software has been installed in all three offices, and the first project is in progress.

IntelliShip
IntelliShip is the next-generation shipbuilding information system developed and sold by Intergraph PPM and DNV Software together with three main shipyards in Europe, US and East Asia. Implemented on the latest technology from Microsoft, the system is built around one database providing a full multi-user/multi-discipline environment where all designs are visible to all parties simultaneously. This gives our structural and outfitting engineers the ability to work on the same model simultaneously, and also enables work sharing between FKAB’s and DFMarine’s offices in Sweden and China.

Since the model is always up-to-date, discussions can be held with owners at any time, giving them increased influence on layout with all details visible in a realistic 3D model. By using the powerful filter functionality, the owner can, for example, get an instant answer on which systems will be influenced if he chooses a different manufacturer of a specific pump or engine. This enables new ways of doing work, which today are based mainly on the
use of printed drawings.

Through enforcement of rules, IntelliShip helps ensuring design accuracy and consistency. This functionality gives FKAB and DF-Marine the possibility to tailormake rules for automatic creation of yardand/or owner-specific details. In this way we can decrease the amount of repetitive design work, improve the design quality, and give the owner full freedom in choosing shop fabrication lines for hull/outfitting without redesign. A close interface between the piping diagram tool SmartPlant P&ID and IntelliShip helps our layout designers, who are routing pipes in Dalian, ensure that the information in the 3D product data model is consistent with the schematics created by our piping experts in Shanghai.

Nauticus Early Design
DNV Software’s Nauticus Early Design is the first solution integrating Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) with Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) in shipbuilding. Nauticus Early Design utilises some key components from Intergraph’s IntelliShip and is integrated with DNV Software’s reputed systems for strength assessment and rule check for ships and offshore structures. Nauticus Early Design utilises one common concept model of the ship for all design tasks pertaining to the early design phase.

The process flow:

Nauticus Early Design is using the same structural modeller functionality and database kernel as IntelliShip, securing FKAB and DF-Marine as users of both systems a seamless integration between the early and production design phases further enhancing work processes and work sharing. This way of working will help us cut the number of models created in a typical project from up to five to one, securing consistency between the different tasks
and increasing the quality.

Author: Peter Rösholm, General Manager DF-Marine