Design and Engineering Integration During the Weld Lifecycle

Welding is one of the most important aspects of shipbuilding. Welds are one of the largest labor and material components in ship delivery. Also, the effect of even a single weld failure can be catastrophic to the ship’s performance and to crew safety. In spite of its key role, welding in the shipbuilding industry suffers from many problems that plague the welding industry at large as well as challenges unique to shipbuilding. These challenges have created a situation where welding is a high-cost process that lacks useful tools and methods to increase efficiency and lower costs. The proposed solution combines recent research from the welding industry with technology and innovations from Knowledge Systems Solutions to create a rule-based suite of software that supports an interoperable weld lifecycle. The proposed solution will 1. Document a weld lifecycle commonly used in shipbuilding. 2. Implement an open system architecture and neutral data modeling standards for interoperability. 3. Create a suite of rule-based software tools to capture, manage, and reuse best practices and lessons learned. 4. Provide a business model that allows companies to incrementally implement the solution with a quick return on investment.