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CAD/CAM Industry-Wide Interoperability Investment Paying Off By Rick Self, Executive Director; National Shipbuilding Research Program (NSRP) The Integrated Shipbuilding Environ- ment (ISE) project sponsored by the National Shipbuilding Research Pro- gram is a three-year effort to develop and deploy an industry-wide architec- ture for computer interoperability. ISE is targeting cost and cycle time reduction for both Navy and commercial cus- tomers by providing real-time digital connectivity between shipbuilders and their suppliers. ISE also targets the total ownership costs during the 40-year life of a ship in that it provides access to configuration data during the life of a ship or ship class - regardless of com- puter system upgrades. The expected benefits of this project are very high. For each shipyard, con- servative benefits are a 15 percent reduc- tion in pre-contract labor, six percent reduction in production labor and a two percent reduction in material costs. Business Case The ISE business case is simple: radi- cally reduce the costly, time-consuming and error-prone manual re-entry of com- plex 3-D design information through reliable and efficient digital data transfer of: • Part information from vendor elec- tronic libraries into shipyard parts libraries, 3-D design data from CAD files to the sophisticated computer analysis and simulation tools used to validate the design of each ship system, and • 3-D design data between diverse CAD systems and versions at shipyards specializing in defense work, commer- cially oriented U.S. yards, and marine suppliers. This capability is significant because second tier shipyards and marine suppliers rarely use the sophisti- cated high-end CAD tools used by U.S. yards supporting DoD programs, and because even a single vendor's CAD product installations at different facili- ties routinely result in interoperability issues. The patchwork solutions current- ly used to address this increasingly sig- nificant cost driver include time con- suming and very expensive modification of direct point-to-point translators every time a new version of a CAD system is Top-down Projections (over a 10 year period) Design Savings Structural Piping Other Total Design Programs Carriers, Submarines, Combatants $4.5B $6.75 B S3.75B Si SB Projected systems technology savings S1.12B S1.69B S0.94B S3.75B Projected savings attributed to ISE S56M S85M $47M S188M This project began in September 1999 and completes in July 2003. implemented at any point in the supply chain, or among co-design or co-produc- tion partners — a frequent occurrence. ISE's end goal is a cost effective, inte- grated, and functional information sys- tem that will provide toolsets for real- time collaboration and information shar- ing among shipyards, suppliers, owner/operators, and regulators. Toolset capabilities include: • Direct download of piping and structural parts data from vendor elec- tronic catalogs into shipyard digital parts libraries; • Export of detailed CAD data to (a) analysis tools, (b) simulation programs, and (c) ship classification software; and. • Electronic exchange of molded form data (complex geometric shapes of steel hull plating) between four different shipbuilding CAD systems. These capabilities flow from adher- ence to international standards for data structures — a practice adopted across most manufacturing industries world- wide. Typically during the life cycle of a ship or ship class, the Navy, shipbuilders and/or suppliers will face one or more Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Com- puter-Aided Manufacturing (CAM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and or Product Data Management (PDM) system transitions. The consen- sus ISE standards and protocols being developed enable new systems to access the data from previous systems and enable new versions of existing systems to access data from all previous versions — a capability whose absence in current systems is costly. ISE's key asset is the critical mass of AUTOSHIP SYSTEMS CORPORATION Providing Software Solutions to the Marine Industry for over 20 Years SHIP DESIGN SOFTWARE Autostructure 1.1 - advanced new structural modeling system. Autoship 8.1 - hull design and surface modeling system used worldwide. Autoplate 8.1 - the latest in plate expansion software. Autopower - resistance and powering software. INTEGRATED MARINE SHIPPING DATA SOLUTIONS Without integrated data, planning and operational processes, you can't compete. And to compete, you need more than just computer programs. That's why we provide customized Cargo Management and Stowage Planning systems. 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