SBIR-STTR Award

Subcontracting between shipyards can reduce total construction costs through workload leveling and maximum use of available automated equipment Shipyards are subcontracting piping work now, but only using paper drawings, which adds substantial time delay, costs, and sources of error. For Naval vessels, piping represents more than 25% of ship construction costs. ISO STEP standards exist which can completely define the data needed to manufacture piping. Some CAD systems can export these STEP files now. The problem is that there is no software available for pipe shops to receive and make use of this data. Industrial Planning Technology proposes to solve this system support technology problem with a collection of software tools that: (1) Simplify and speed up pipe fabrication subcontracting by generating complete pipe shop ordering, estimating, scheduling, and control data from STEP piping files. (2) Provide complete high fidelity simulation checking of all pipe shop operations. (3) Add STEP piping import capability to an existing commercial pipe shop direct numerical control system. (4) Provide standard piping data export from the ShipConstructorT CAD package. (5) Provide a generic C++ toolkit to reduce the costs of constructing software that uses the STEP piping data format

Availability of a robust computer product model is critical to support the 50 year life cycle of Naval vessels. Shipyards need CAD independent computer aided manufacturing solutions so they can use “best of breed” CAD and CAM solutions and efficiently subcontract work between shipyards. This project will develop an ISO STEP AP227 product model translator for the widely used ShipConstructor™ CAD system. ShipConstructor™ is used on the Navy LCS program and the Coast Guard deep-water program. A STEP AP227 based pipe shop simulation, estimating, and control system will also be developed and demonstrated, using STEP AP227 to perform group coding, manufacturing simulation, job time and cost estimating, and numerical control data generation for pipe shops. One of the root causes for the lack of commercially available STEP piping software is the difficulty of creating software that can handle the STEP piping data format. A C++ toolkit for developing AP227 translators will be made freely available (open source) to the industry as part of this project.

Benefit:
Savings from the deployment of these software modules is estimated to be $8 million per year.

Keywords:
Life Cycle, Product Model, STEP, Design, CAD