A World Class Solution for Digital Design & Manufacturing
Client: General Dynamics Electric Boat
Challenge: Win the design and construction contract for a new class of submarine that could be procured in quantities that would maintain US SSN (Ship Submersible Nuclear) force levels.
Solution: Demonstrate the ability to utilize an Integrated Product Development Environment (IPDE), which provided a systems architecture capable of integrating business processes and computer systems to enable the production of ship design and construction deliverables
Results: Client Benefits
• 35% reduction in design cycle time
• Elimination of physical mock-ups in most areas
• Over 50% issuance of drawings at start of construction, compared to 5% on previous classes
• 83% reduction in procured parts
• Two-thirds reduction in the number of Navy-approved hard copy drawings
The IPPD process had to enable EB to achieve a significant reduction in design cycle time, while increasing the quality of the design product. The design and engineering systems had to be fully integrated with EB's existing automated construction systems, and provide a world-class design capability.
"State-of-the-Market” IPDE for Submarine Design & Construction
CSC provided the technology needed to enable a “state-of-the-market” IPDE for submarine design and construction. The CSC/EB team worked through a development partnership with Dassault Systemes to bring industry-leading HVAC and electrical design capability to EB. CSC managed a complex, heterogeneous application development environment, complicated by COTS and legacy applications. In the end, the IPDE required a development skill set of DB2/SQL,Fortran, ANSI C, CATIA II/IUA,Motif, DB2/ 6000, Unix, MVS/TSO, COBOL, IMS, and expert systems. The key elements of the IPDE include a fully digital design and engineering environment, enabling a full 3D virtual submarine design.
Implementation of these electronic visualization tools ultimately eliminated the need for a physical mock-up of most areas of the the ship. The program also included the integration of COTS and legacy products for design, engineering analysis, large-scale visualization, scheduling,change management and Manufacturing
Resource Planning (MACPAC). A Product Data Management (PDM) system, built on the CATIA Data Manager (CDM), was fully integrated with the CATIA design tool and MRP systems.
Netting Results
“CSC’s contribution has been extraordinary,” says Don Slawski, General Dynamics Marine IPDE Program Manager. “Through dedicated teamwork and commitment to excellence and innovation, the EB/CSC team has accomplished something truly unique in the shipbuilding industry.”