Today’s hyper-competitive business environment requires companies to become more and more agile. The ability to act and change rapidly constitutes a huge business advantage. At the same time, tomorrow’s business opportunities will be based on what we have learnt in the past.

Capturing and spreading knowledge requires a process centric approach that includes both the process itself and the
information and data related to it. Equally important is the engineering processes viewed in a life cycle context – a holistic view including the complete value chain. Engineering processes in a life cycle context mean the ability to design for operation. That is, to bring operational experience and knowledge back into the design phase.

State-of-the-art design and engineering methodologies are moving from pure outline specifications into more use of design processes supporting multi-dimensional views taking into account the requirements of more stakeholders. More frequently we see stakeholders’ analyses being performed, where all the actors influenced by the business case are identified, both external and internal parties. The user should then proceed with identifying each actor’s expectations of the project’s performance.

The rise in ‘infotech’ has moved the shipbuilding industry from being skillbased to information-based. According to Takeo Koyamo, Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo: “Stakeholders in shipbuilding will increase in numbers. Standard design will not only be a shipyard’s matter, and collaboration within stakeholders will be the key issue for successful design. Longer life cycle of ships requests new aspect for maintenance and recycling.”

Emerging important design technologies; product models and knowledge based engineering (KBE) will change the overall design process. Emerged technologies are increasingly being used by design teams. The product model allows distributed teams to work on the same design model from different locations covering all disciplines – global engineering. The graphical view of the product model facilitates new ways of working – where key stakeholders, such as the ship captain and the chief, work closely together with designers, owner’s representatives and engineers, with the aim of making fit-forpurpose designs. Design proposals are validated instantly towards operation’s experience, design intentions and class rules by using KBE technologies.

DNV Software’s engineers have, together with key clients, responded to the need of more transparency and agility in the overall design process. Brix™ aims at solving this challenge by giving an organisation a means for improved engineering performance by combining process support and state-of-the-art services within the same portal. Using business process templates to describe engineering work is how DNV Software offers a way to capture, preserve and spread knowledge, facilitating a learning and acting global organisation.

In Q1 2006, DNV Software proudly launched Brix Explorer hosting Sesam in the global offshore industry. For the main industry, Nauticus hosted by Brix Explorer is due to be delivered in Q2. Finally, our risk suite of applications for the process industry is planned to be delivered in Q3.

Our ambition is that existing and new customers shall have a taste of the ‘Brix Way’ by the end of 2006. Being a longterm partner to the industry, we know that learning and acting organisations will be best suited to meet challenges, knowing that change is a journey and not a destination – so embark on the journey with us and learn!

Author: Elling Rishoff, Managing Director DNV Software