Research Proposal for PhD Studies

Research Proposal for PhD Studies

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博主 的留学读博研究计划

Hosting institution: Seoul National University
Research Title: Design of digital shipyard on the application of PLM
Duration of study: 48 months (from XXX to XXX)

1. Research Background

Since 2009 of the global financial crisis, shipbuilding industry has undergone hard times seriously. After such a long depression, the latest global shipping market index shows that the economic recovery of the global shipbuilding market is underway. Currently, center of weight is being passed over to China and other developing countries. Through the investigation of this trend, it is inevitable that the central movement of shipbuilding as a manufacturing industry from Korea and Japan to China and the other countries [1] . Weight shift of the shipbuilding industry is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Weight shift of shipbuilding industry [1]

Nation	1940s	1950s	1960s~1980s	1990s~2000s	2000s~
British/America	New production method (Rivet assembly) Competitive price	Product diversity Non-price competitive	Governmental subsidy Nationalization/Closing	Privatization Reduction & Disposal
Europe		Governmental support	Product specialization Company restructuring	Governmental subsidy Bankruptcy/Closing
Japan		Governmental support New production method (Welding assembly)	Governmental support	Product diversity Non-price competitiveness
Korea			Governmental support	Competitive price	Non-price competitiveness Product Differentiation (High value vessel)
China/India/South America etc.				Governmental support	Competitive price

Faced with such fierce competition in the market and more complex structure of products, China must learn the foreign advanced shipbuilding technology actively, and improve manufacturing technology and production management level to enhance its “soft” strength, in order to provide more high quality shipbuilding services with a shorter delivery time and more competitive prices. Only in this way, China can avoid the world shipbuilding center turn to Southeast Asian countries where the human resources cost cheaper, like from Japan and South Korea to China a few years ago.

1.1 Overview of shipbuilding process

Shipbuilding is a project oriented, complex manufacturing process dealing with millions of parts, as well as several production activities conducted in parallel. And the manufacturing process includes preprocessing, fabrication, assembly, precedence outfitting, painting, precedence block erection, block erection, outfitting, etc, and these processes occur in a very complex pattern over a long period of time.

However shipbuilding processes are different from other typical manufacturing processes in the following characteristics [2] :
1) Ship type and form is very diverse and it is difficult to standardize since the design process is done according to the user’s requests.
2) Material procurement and manufacturing begins while the design stage is not complete, so engineering changes and materials replacement are expected in the manufacturing stage.
3) Shipbuilding is a labor intensive industry that is very difficult to mechanize and automate, so a lot of qualitative information is processed.
4) While materials are big and heavy, required accuracy is high and structure is complex, so it is difficult to standardize manufacturing process.
5) Ships with different specification are built at the same time, and a lot of information is required for management of each ships.

Because of the above reasons, building a prototype for verification of product validity and quality assurance is practically impossible in the sense of manufacturing cost and time. Therefore, in order to increase efficiency in shipbuilding, the extraction of detailed design and manufacturing information is required, and such information needs to be exchanged and integrated with simulation based on PLM (Product Lifecycle Management).

1.2 Overseas and Domestic Research Status

1) Overseas shipbuilding

US initiated the research of the next generation of ship design system based on the SBD (Simulation Based Design) funding by ARPA in 1992. The goal of this research is to establish a virtual environment which can undertake ship design and manufacture operation and evaluation in advance, namely designing and virtual building of ships implemented on a computer. The key technology is the integrated development environment (IPPD), which uses virtual reality technology seamlessly integrated CAE/CAD/CAM and the database, and presented the corresponding prototype system in 1994.

Frensberg shipyard of Germany has been conducting a research for the simulation project for application to the shop floor since 2003 and Simulation Toolkit for Shipbuilding (STS) was developed as a result of the project. There came out a practice for the fabrication process [3] , and one for the block assembly process planning system [4] . These kinds of researches have their own significance in focusing on the advancement of planning and prediction capability with the application to the actual ship production environment apart from traditional simulation approach.

The competitiveness of the Korean shipbuilding industry lies in its efficient production management capability. This is different from the strengths of Japan and the European countries, which previously led the world shipbuilding industry based upon the development of original technology and innovation [5] . From 2001 to 2004, South Korea nationally funded ‘Integrated Digital Shipbuilding Technology for Development of High Value-added Ship’ project was conducted by a consortium consisting of Seoul National University, Samsung Heavy Industries, and several national institutes. Through this project, research on ship production and shipbuilding simulation was widely performed. Several practices for the shipyard forecasting system were performed by the modeling of the product, process, resource and planning data into an integrated simulation model [6] .

2) Domestic shipbuilding

The shipbuilding industry, which relates to the national defense construction and the national economic construction, is an important mainstay industry for China. In recent years, Chinese shipbuilding output takes the first place in the world, and China success in becoming the largest shipbuilding country. But our shipbuilding enterprises have great difference with Korea and Japan in production management, such as production planning, duration controlling, and production scheduling, etc. Lack of information feedback, the production plan cannot intuitively reflect the production schedule changes; the distribution of materials, equipment and workers is difficult to optimize; low management level of production dispatching; poor production efficiency and problems of controlling the construction cycle are seriously hinder Chinese shipbuilders to improve their productivity and management level and become the most powerful shipbuilding country. In order for China shipyards to be competitive in the future, they need to insert manufacturing technology commensurate with their product lines [7] . China gradually put great importance on the research of virtual manufacturing in recent years, mainly concentrated in virtual manufacturing, product virtual design technology, virtual machining technology and virtual manufacturing system, etc.

1.3 Design of digital shipyard on the application of PLM (Product Lifecycle Management)

The production environment of a shipyard can essentially be divided into six elements: products, processes, facility resources, human resources, space resources, and schedules. Figure 1 [8] shows the grouping of the elements of the shipyard production system according to their attributes. The six elements are closely related to one another. Currently, production management in shipyards mainly deals with products, processes, and scheduling.

Fig. 1 Analysis based on six elements of shipyard production system [8]

In the design and fabrication of ships and offshore structures, changes in processes and enterprise information systems require new challenges for the management of product data. PLM(Product Lifecycle Management) [9] is considered to be a key change for product data management and digital processes within shipbuilding enterprises through the life cycle of naval vessels, with the objectives of increasing productivity, reducing vessel design and production times, saving costs and improving the quality of the whole process [10] .

The main PhD research Design of digital shipyard on the application of PLM may divided into three parts:

• Manufacturing analysis and PPR-S (Product, Process, Resource and Schedule) modeling
• SWBS (Ship Work Breakdown Structure) and PDM (Product Data Management)

1) Manufacturing analysis and PPR-S (Product, Process, Resource and Schedule) modeling

The production processes in a shipyard are highly complex and take various forms owing to the project-like characteristics of the products. Thus, a shipyard’s competitiveness is determined by the level of production management capability that it possesses. More recently, they have extended these efforts through the introduction of virtual manufacturing. Virtual manufacturing makes it possible to realize an improved productivity through the use of modeling and simulation technology [5] . As a result, it is possible to leave behind decision making based on mere intuition or past experience by establishing improved planning based on concrete quantitative data.

Nowadays, Shipyard Manufacturing information is analyzed in order to determine the detailed specifications of the shipyard production simulation model. The modeling and simulation (M&S) technology [11] aiming at preverifying extensively continues to develop in the manufacturing industry [12] . It is a well-verified technology that has demonstrated great efficacy in the manufacturing industries, e.g., the automotive industry and electronics industry. However, since shipyards produce made-to-order, or better, engineered-to-order products, and because its rate of automation is lower than that of other industries, there have been many difficulties in applying virtual manufacturing to shipbuilding. Virtual manufacturing is defined as “a computer system that is capable of generating information about the structure, state, and behavior of a manufacturing system, such as could be observed in a real manufacturing environment” [13] . Virtual manufacturing is usually realized using a modeling and simulation technology, and various solutions are used according to the characteristics of the industry [5] .

This study should defines a simulation modeling methodology that is suitable for the characteristics of shipbuilding. On the foundation of existing virtual manufacturing modeling methodologies, we should apply the product, process, resource, and schedule (PPR-S) model [5] , which is suitable for a shipyard production environment. The shipyard simulation information model is used to achieve two major goals. First, it is employed for storing the process-centric modeling information as simulation model information. Second, once the simulation is done, it is used for storing the results of the corresponding simulation model. Hence, a new process-centric [5] , rather than a resource-centric, modeling methodology is necessary, which is different from the virtual manufacturing technology in traditional industry used for checking production quantity in a production line.

2) SWBS (Ship Work Breakdown Structure) and PDM (Product Data Management)

With the development of shipbuilding technology and the presentation of the concepts of zone construction, interim product and Integrated Hull construction, Outfitting and Painting (IHOP), traditional Ship Work Breakdown Structure (SWBS) is unsuitable for existing shipbuilding procedure [14] . For a shipyard, some mixed form of the product bill of materials (BOMs) and a processed BOM is used. This hybrid characteristic is expressed in a SWBS, which comprises integrated information for the product, processes, resources, and scheduling. It can be seen that the SWBS model used in a shipyard, as shown in Fig. 2 [5] , includes all the information from PPR-S. Among them, the product and process are significant since they have four-level complex structures that include ship, block, process, and task.

Korean shipyards, the most competitive in the world, have developed and operate their own production management systems to attain high productivity, each of which reflects the unique characteristics of a specific company. Recently, research on simulation methods to enhance Product Data Management (PDM) systems has been gaining popularity. Product Data Management based on simulations rejects decision-making based on experience and intuition and values the establishment of improvement methods based on quantitative and concrete data [8] .

With the rapid development of informationization construction in Chinese shipbuilding enterprises, many of them have various CAX systems through their own development or external introduction. However, in the process of ship design and manufacture, shipbuilding enterprises always choose different CAX systems in various production stages according to different requirements. Therefore, it is hard to realize information sharing and exchange between each other, which leads to a large amount of Information Island [15] . An important solution is in many cases the implementation of PDM Systems or an extended use of the PDM Systems to manage all the data or information that must be shared by the shipyard departments (engineering, purchasing, planning, operations, production, etc.) [10] . And Shipyard Product Data Management systems aim to manage facilities, space, and scheduling and are support tools developed to plan and control various complicated production activities [8] .

Fig. 2 Work breakdown structure model of a shipyard [5]

3) Shipyard layout design and equipment’s layout in facilities

The starting point of shipyard construction is to design a shipyard layout. For this, four kinds of engineering parts required. That is civil, building, utility and production layout engineering. Among these, production layout engineering is most important [1] because its result is going to be foundation of the other engineering parts and determine the shipyard capacity in the shipyard lifecycle.

Fig. 3 Overall procedure for shipyard layout design (left) and summarized input/output (right) [1]

Production capacity of shipyard is defined by the resource secured, the yard area, and work stages. The problem is that most resources and factories are hard to be changed from the initially installed and built status even though the need for the increase of the production capacity is taken place [16] . Therefore, initial layout design of the shipyard has to be conducted with a logical input data and methodology [1] . There came out a systematic shipyard layout design framework with the increase of the new business of shipyard construction since the early part of 2000s. In the past, traditional method was to perform benchmark from the existing shipyard layout. However, try-out or trial and error method was at last worn out [6] .

Recently, global shipbuilding companies have been increasing their productivity or expanding their shipyards to accommodate a large amount of orders. This research presents a simulation-based shipyard layout design framework to resolve the problems of the shipyard layout design. The shipyard layout design framework was developed on the basis of the systems engineering method [17] . Figure 3 [1] shows Overall procedure for shipyard layout design and summarized input/output. It is expected that the framework will contribute not only to the improvement of the existing shipyard layout design but also to the construction of the new shipyard or shipyard advancement.

2. Theoretical Review

Bloger’ Personal Theoretical Review

3. The Goals of the Research

1) To have a systematic study on advanced shipbuilding mode and methodology in all aspects;
2) To establish Process-Centric Modeling (PCM) methodology for PPR-S modeling;
3) To build a hierarchical network planning model based on Ship Work Breakdown Structure (SWBS), in order to put forward the SWBS dissolution rules and method, and establish work planning systems;
4) To design Product Data Management (PDM) system;
5) To introduce simulation-based shipyard layout design framework.

4. The Experimental Methods

1) Manufacturing analysis and PPR-S (Product, Process, Resource and Schedule) modeling

The aim of this study is to establish a simulation modeling methodology that can be used to apply virtual manufacturing technology that is optimized for shipbuilding. However, simulation modeling of shipyard takes a lot of man-hours and high cost, since shipyards deal with various products. A modeling methodology based on the shipyard processes is required. As a result, a process-centric modeling (PCM) [5] methodology is needed based on an analysis of the characteristics of shipbuilding processes, and a system for virtual manufacturing and an information model are realized.

The PCM methodology proposed is appropriate for prior verification of production plan and production processes. It is founded on the information structure of Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), which is a system of production management criterion administered by shipyards [5] .

To precisely mimic the characteristics of a shipyard’s complex production environment, a well-verified simulation tool is needed. Currently, for the simulation of a complex production environment or factory, two such tools enjoy the widespread use of DELMIA D5 QUEST by Dassault Systems in France and Plant Simulation by Siemens in Germany. The companies that developed these two software packages also developed PLM solutions, and they offer various system integration functions in addition to the simulation function. The sequence of generating a simulation model differs from one software package to another, but the general common sequence can be described in three steps, as shown in Table 5 [5] .

Table 5 Process of the simulation modeling for a virtual manufacturing [5]

Step	Main category	Modeling task
Step 1	Resource	Basic resource object generation
		Resource geometry modeling
		Resource layout definition
		Resource attribute definition
	Product	Product object generation
		Product geometry modeling
		Product attribute definition
Step 2	Process	Process object generation
		Related resource definition
		Related product definition
		Processing time definition
		Routing definition
	Material handling resource	Material handling resource object generation
		Related material handling resource definition
		Material handling resource geometry modeling
		Material handling resource attribute definition
Step 3	Simulation control logic	Work rule definition
		Routing rule definition
		Dispatching rule definition
	Simulation data set	Priority rule definition
		Input data set definition
		Output data set definition

2) SWBS (Ship Work Breakdown Structure) and PDM (Product Data Management)

This research describes a cooperative effort on the part of shipyards and the academic community to develop a generic production-oriented Ship Work Breakdown Structure [18] for ship design and construction.

In order to solve the consistency problem of hierarchical plan for shipbuilding, a hierarchical network planning model based on Ship Work Breakdown Structure (SWBS) will be proposed. By analyzing the characteristics of SWBS [14] , the SWBS dissolution rules and method will be provided. And the work planning processes and planning systems are analyzed. By using the results obtained in this study, it is expected that shipyards can construct cycles for establishing, simulating, and analyzing work plans, enabling the establishment of more precise production plans.

Virtual manufacturing requires a robust information infrastructure that comprises rich information models for products, processes and production systems. So for a fast access / retrieval and manipulation of information, VM requires a structured database back ending. Different database systems like Oracle, Sybase etc. can be customized used for this purpose. The object oriented database approach is best suited for this purpose since different information models will be comprised of different independent entities.

3) Shipyard layout design and equipment’s layout in facilities

Paradigm shift of the global shipbuilding industry is being accelerated in these days. New shipbuilding business models have to be investigated in order to sustain a current competitiveness [19] .

Previous methods or research cases about the shipbuilding layout was not suitable for the professional target because there were little considerations about the actual product data and the actual operation time data. Also, there were lacks of the commercial business requirements [19] . In this research, the shipyard layout design method is introduced based on the actual product data and the actual operation time with a reasonable calculation procedure. Also, the commercial requirements from the customer are reflected with an appropriate engineering consideration.

The techniques described in this paper are divided into two categories: foundation techniques and application techniques [20] . Foundation techniques are specialized for, and specific to, the shipbuilding industry, whereas the application techniques are in accord with general and practical target development items.

The foundation techniques
Data standardization, Simulation technique, Optimization techniques.

Application techniques
Construction of the integrated PO (Purchase Order) planning with the production and the integrated material management system;
Technique for the simulation based production planning system;
Technique for the simulation based process planning system;
Technique for the simulation based integrated logistic planning system;
Technique for the strategic value chain networking.

References:

[1] Lee S J, Woo J H, Shin J G. New business opportunity: Green field project with new technology[J]. International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, 2014, 6(2): 471-483.
[2] Kim H, Lee S S, Park J H, et al. A model for a simulation-based shipbuilding system in a shipyard manufacturing process[J]. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 2005, 18(6): 427-441.
[3] Kaarsemaker J, Nienhuis U. Simulation of a maritime pre-fabrication process[C]. Conference on Computer Applications and Information Technology in the Maritime Industries (COMPIT), Delft of Netherland. 2006.
[4] Steinhauer D, Meyer-Konig S. Simulation aided production planning in block assembly[C]. The 5th International Conference on Computer Applications and Information Technology in the Maritime Industries (COMPIT’06), Oud Poelgeest, Leiden/Netherlands. 2006: 8-11.
[5] Lee D K, Kim Y, Hwang I H, et al. Study on a process-centric modeling methodology for virtual manufacturing of ships and offshore structures in shipyards[J]. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2014, 71(1-4): 621-633.
[6] Song Y J, Woo J H, Shin J G. Research on systematization and advancement of shipbuilding production management for flexible and agile response for high value offshore platform[J]. International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, 2011, 3(3): 181-192.
[7] Medeiros D J, Traband M, Tribble A, et al. Simulation based design for a shipyard manufacturing process[C]. Proceedings of the 2000 Winter Simulation Conference. Society for Computer Simulation International, 2000: 1411-1414.
[8] Lee D K, Shin J G, Kim Y, et al. Simulation-Based Work Plan Verification in Shipyards[J]. Journal of Ship Production and Design, 2014, 30(2): 49-57.
[9] Lee J H, Kim S H, Lee K. Integration of evolutional BOMs for design of ship outfitting equipment[J]. Computer-Aided Design, 2012, 44(3): 253-273.
[10] Alonso F, González C, Perez R. Advanced Cad - PLM Integration in a Naval Shipbuilding Environment[C]. Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Applications in Shipbuilding 2011. 2011.
[11] He Di. 3D Process Simulation of Shipyard Production Based on DELMIA [D]. Shanghai, China: Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 2012.
[12] Woo J H, Song Y J, Kang Y W, et al. Development of the Decision-Making System for the Ship Block Logistics Based on the Simulation[J]. Journal of Ship Production and Design, 2010, 26(4): 290-300.
[13] Iwata K, Onosato M, Teramoto K, et al. Virtual manufacturing systems as advanced information infrastructure for integrating manufacturing resources and activities[J]. CIRP Annals-Manufacturing Technology, 1997, 46(1): 335-338.
[14] Jin Chaoguang, Lin Yan, Ji Zhuoshang. Application of Modern Work Breakdown Structure in Shipbuilding Procedure [J]. Shipbuilding of China, 2002(04): 85-89.
[15] Yao Jingzheng. Research on Key Technologies of Integration Data Platform Supporting Digital Shipbuilding[D]. Harbin, China: Harbin Engineering University, 2011.
[16] Song Y J, Lee D K, Woo J H, et al. System Development and Applications of a Shipyard Layout Design Framework[J]. Journal of Ship Production and Design, 2010, 26(2): 144-154.
[17] Shin J G, Song Y J, Lee D K, et al. A Concept and Framework for a Shipyard Layout Design Based on Simulation[J]. Journal of Ship Production, 2009, 25(3): 126-135.
[18] KOENIG, C. P, CHRISTENSEN, et al. Development and implementation of modern Work Breakdown structures in naval construction : A case study[J]. Development and implementation of modern Work Breakdown structures in naval construction, 1999, 15(3): 136-145.
[19] Song Y J, Woo J H. New shipyard layout design for the preliminary phase & case study for the green field project[J]. International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, 2013, 5(1): 132-146.
[20] Song Y J, Wo J H, Shin J G. Research on a simulation-based ship production support system for middle-sized shipbuilding companies[J]. International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, 2009, 1(2): 70-77.

5. The Work Plan after Returning to China

After graduating from Seoul National University, I will return to China to pursue my PhD research in a scientific research institution or a China’s top university, and make full use of the advanced ideas and technology studied in Seoul National University to apply in domestic issues. Additionally, I would like to promote further cooperation and technical exchanges between foreign and China. Moreover, I will make great efforts to feedback to my motherland with the knowledge studied in Seoul National University.

6. Time Plan

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