A big step forward was taken today (December 14th) in the future of digital shipbuilding with the unveiling of a submarine hull section designed in Germany with the plans digitally transmitted to a factory in Western Australia and constructed by a local engineering company.
ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems is one of several leading naval ship designer builders to embrace Integrated Product Design Environment (IPDE) for submarine development. This technology has been validated in the most challenging automotive and aerospace environments. It offers a “new way of doing business” and replaces the first or second generation systems used for the current naval shipbuilding program in Australia.
It effectively eliminates geography as a risk factor and allows full collaborative involvement with the customer at every step of the submarine’s life. A number of world class submarine builders use this German system and support ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems’ claim that substantial savings are possible in terms of cost and schedule. The risk associated with transferring information from one country to another is all but eliminated.
Chairman of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems Australia, Dr John White, said that ThyssenKrupp was able to design the hull section at its Kiel, Germany shipyard for well-known West Australian shipbuilding and engineering company Civmec to use the latest technology to complete the build last Friday in Henderson, WA. This was an exercise to validate the company’s estimates with regard to production cost, quality and production schedules.
“Today’s revealing of the hull section at the Australian Marine Complex (AMC), Henderson is a perfect example of how leaders in the global shipbuilding industry are changing the way they will do business in the future. ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems is at the forefront of integrated digital design, construction and sustainment and sees IPDE as an area of huge potential as Australian shipbuilding meets the challenges of the future. The spin-off impact on advanced manufacturing in Australia will be enormous,” Dr White said today.
Read the full story at Navy Recognition