A Computer Simulation Approach to Improving Tugboat Shipbuilding Design and Development Productivity

Tugboat shipbuilding design drawings are currently prepared with insufficient and untimely information of material/equipment availability, resulting in drawing changes and errors, increased labor and material costs, and lengthening of ship completion time. It is proposed that the design drawings are only prepared after confirmation of material/equipment availability from vendors to deal with the problem. The concept of concurrent engineering is introduced by integrating design and vendor activities through adequate and timely vendor-furnished information (VFI) to deal with the problem. The PERT (program evaluation and review technique) computer simulation models were employed through the use of a simulation package AweSim to analyze the work activity networks of piping drawings. A cost savings of about $1,389,700 would be possible through a 10% reduction in total design and including piping drawings and development labor costs and construction labor and material costs. The completion time for preparing design drawings and ship construction can be reduced by about 186 days or 19.5% of the total throughput time for a tugboat shipbuilding process.