Hyundai Heavy Industries' chemical carrier "Nathalie Sif."
GRIFFIN VENTURE EQUIPMENT LIST
Generators Unipak
VHF radio Sailor
SSB Sailo
Radar Kelvin Hughes
Gyrocompass C. Plath
Compass Navipol
Autopilot Anschutz
Cargo Pump Kvaerner Eureka
A MEDICAL EMERGENCY
AT SEA COULD COST
YOU THOUSANDS
OF DOLLARS & HOURS
OF PRECIOUS TIME.
PROTECT YOUR PEOPLE. Your people are
your company's lifeline. The employees on your
ships deserve competent medical service at their
disposal whenever and wherever they may need it.
PROTECT YOUR COMPANY Your company
depends on your employees. They depend on you to
provide them with medical services they may need.
PROTECT YOUR PROFITS. Your profits are
your bottom line. Preventing possible setbacks can
save you thousands of dollars in the long run.
SOS MARITIME® SERVICES is available 24 hours a day,
365 days a year to help vessels at sea in the sudden event of an
emergency. Doctor advice and referrals are on-hand to help in
any situation, day or night. Protect your people now, so your
company and profits are protected later.
Call SOS® Maritime Services for more information today.
International SOS® Assistance
P.O. Box 11568
Philadelphia, PA 19116
Phone 215.244.1500
Fax 215.244.2227
Telex 271349
Circle 215 on Reader Service Card
Yard: Samsung
Heavy Industries
Vessel: Griffin Venture
Type: FPSO Tanker
The Griffin Venture, a 105,000-
dwt FPSO (Floating, Production,
Storage and Offloading) tanker, was
delivered to BHP Petroleum, Aus-
tralia, by Samsung Heavy Indus-
tries (SHI) in October. Classed by
Lloyd's, the Griffin Venture will fly
the Australian flag and operate near
that country's Griffin Field. The
tanker is 797 feet long, with a 137-
foot breadth and a draft of nearly 48
feet, and is built to comply with
IMO Regulation 13F regarding
double skin hulls. The Griffin
Venture's hull was designed to har-
monize with the ship's rotatable
azimuth thrusters. Its two engines
each generate 2,500 kW to propel
the ship at a speed of 8.1 knots. For
more information on Samsung
Heavy Industries,
Circle 58 on Reader Service Card
U.S. Yards Change To Compete
(Continued from page 31)
the foreign yards they must com-
pete with. This is also attractive to
the foreign businesses, such as those
in Japan for whom American labor
is cheaper and costs not as unbal-
anced as they once were, thanks to
a swelling yen. "We've had Europe-
ans and Japanese in our yard since
1979," NASSCO's Mr. Hallett
stated. "We're behind in doing long
production runs. Methodologies and
technologies exist that are superior
to those in the U.S.," he said, noting
that the containership Madison
built at NASSCO was a European
design.
"Let's face it," said Mr. Waryas,
"there are people around the world
who've been building commercial
ships for years, and there's no sense
reinventing the wheel." NNS's re-
cent joint proposal with
Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy In-
dustries (IHI) and Sumitomo Heavy
Industries (SHI) of Japan, and
Ficantieri of Italy, to build eight
LNG carriers for the Italian gas
utility Snam, gained a place for
NNS at the cutting edge of commer-
cial ship design with access to IHI's
SPB (Self-supporting Prismatic
IMO type-B) design. Considered
the most advanced tanker design in
the world, it was first incorporated
into IHI's 1993 delivery, the Polar
Eagle. And for NNS, this place was
obtained without a lot of costly R&D.
High Efficiency, Low Costs
Performance improvement is in-
deed a catchphrase amongU.S. ship-
yards these days. As of November
1993, NNS is ISO 9000-certified, a
factor NNS hopes will enhance its
commercial position — but most of
its change is coming from within.
"We separated businesses along
product lines," Mr. Waryas said,
"so you have the Navy business,
then the commercial business. We
have a completely different setup
for the commercial side. What we
look at is driving down costs: we
identify the costs associated with
commercial shipbuilding, and the
idea is to get our cost structure such
that we can compete not only domes-
tically, but internationally."
NNS is trying to ensure that it
uses its resources most productively.
Ken Clarke, NNS's Manager of
Commercial Ship Marketing, says a
number of programs have been in-
stituted to minimize costs. "One
program is the Cost of Quality pro-
gram, where we analyze the cost of
our internal and external rework.
By doing this we can target areas for
improvement that will give us the
greatest return on our efforts."
"Another result of implementing
this program," Mr. Waryas added,
"is reflected in how we review ven-
dor bids. When we received bids, in
most cases it was traditional to take
the low bid. But in the long run, that
might not be the best action, be-
cause of downstream problems which
translate into extra costs. It might
be better to take a slightly higher bid
from a vendor with a proven quality
record or who we have cooperated
with before." NNS has created far-
reaching, pro-active programs to cut
costs in many forms, from minimiz-
ing the consequences of subcontrac-
tor underbidding to improving em-
ployee involvement. The program
also has a component designed to
send a message of empowerment to
NNS's employees. "Go do something
about it," Mr. Clarke encapsulates
the message. "Don't wait for some-
one to tell you, 'Go fix this,' come up
with a solution and implement it."
Problems not identified and dealt
with immediately can mean a com-
plete rework if detected at an ad-
vanced stage of construction.
NASSCO's Mr. Hallett also iden-
tified costs as a problem. American
labor costs are competitive with for-
eign yards, yet we've had difficulty
producing commercial ships for
prices nearly as low. "I perceive that
the U.S. is the world leader in mili-
tary technology, but we are not the
world leader in driving down costs,"
Mr. Hallett said.
The Outlook
'You're not going to buy a race car
for the same price as a Chevy," said
Mr. Hallett of the price differential
between U.S. and foreign commer-
cial ships. To use this analogy, the
challenge U.S. shipyards face today
is tantamount to race car builders
learning how to build Chevys cost-
effectively: there are different meth-
ods and less of a flexible budget to
work with. Then there is the prob-
lem of convincing shipowners that
U.S. yards are once again viable
commercial shipbuilders. Even
though NASSCO has learned from
contact with foreign yards, Mr.
Hallett said it and other U.S. yards
need orders on which to put new
techniques to concrete use, to give
their workers hands-on experience
building modern commercial ships.
When he spoke of NNS in particu-
lar, Mr. Waryas could have been
speaking of U.S. shipbuilding in gen-
eral: "We want to send a clear mes-
sage that says we're back in the
commercial business."
44 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News
Digital Wave Publishing