Development of a STEP-based Production Information System for Block Assembly Process

More effective production planning and scheduling in shipbuilding is needed to prepare the master data related to the products, the progress of work, and the production method. Therefore, it is most important to generate automatically the master data from a computer-aided design (CAD) model. However, production engineers manually read and analyze the assembly drawings with the detailed process of production, create, and input the master data. It is a time consuming job and also the data are neither clear nor accurate. In this study, we have developed a production information system using Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data (STEP), which generates detailed production-oriented master data systematically and automatically from the CAD hull models considering work process. This production information includes many properties, such as assembly trees, working location, the working posture of setting and welding, material, detailed welding property, direction of stiffeners, plates and assemblies, specifications of parts and assemblies, curvature, turn-over, bevel of seams, slit and open, and throat thickness of welds. Secondly, three-dimensional geometric data (Virtual Reality Modeling Language, VRML) from subassemblies to grand assembly can be generated automatically according to the production process and method. We've tried to improve the quality of the production planning and scheduling with highly accurate detailed master data.