The inaugural Global Shipbuilding Executive Summit was held on April 8th, 2010 in Washington D.C. Sponsored by the American Society of Naval Engineers in conjunction with Siemens PLM Software, the Summit was attended by more than 45 senior shipbuilding industry leaders from around the world from both government and industry. The following companies or organizations sent representations: the U.S. Pentagon, the U.S. Navy, the UK Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, General Dynamics Corporation: Electric Boat, Bath Iron Works and NASSCO, Austal, ABS America, 21st Century Systems, Inc., Lockheed Martin, USEC, Rosenblatt & Associates, Marinette Marine, BMT Syntek, Herbert Engineering, Marine Force International, Luerssen Werft GmbH, Columbia Group, Northrop Grumman, Siemens Marine Solutions, Metro Machine Corporation, Maersk Line, Grey Ghost LLC, BMT Designers & Planners Inc., Raytheon, SAP Global Defense & Aerospace, CDI Government Services, and BAE Systems Ship Services.

The VIP hosts for the Summit (Ms. Kathleen Hinton, President, ASNE; Dr. Klaus Borgschulte, Managing Director & COO, Luerssen; and Mr. Fred Harris, President, NASSCO, a General Dynamics company) each made a brief introductory presentation to the Summit participants. They emphasized the following in their presentations:

• Global Commercial Shipbuilding Industry:
  • Significant over-capacity, with a number of orders cancelled from 2008 to 2009
  • New orders will only come when trade improves
  • Developing technology to comply with new regulatory and environmental standards will be crucial
  • Companies must look to adjacent markets until market recovers
     
• US Shipbuilding Industry:
  • Naval requirements:
    • New naval ships must meet quality standards
    • Must reduce Total Ownership Cost (TOC)
    • Need to incorporate world class processes
    • Must reduce material cost, and
    • Improve Program Management continuity
       
• European Shipbuilding Industry:
  • Requirements to commissioning: need shorter lead time
  • Specialized shipbuilding: requires significant engineering resources,
  • Need sophisticated tools and processes optimization:
    • Increase Standardization
    • Involve the supply network earlier
    • Eliminate non-productive work, and
    • Synchronize parallel processes

In the summation, VIP hosts acknowledged that there were striking similarities and differences between shipbuilding challenges in the US and Europe, but clearly sharing experiences, best practices and lessons learned could be mutually beneficial. In order to facilitate that process, planning has begun for a shipbuilding summit in Europe in the next six months and subsequently a summit in Asia in 2011.

The importance of Total Ownership Cost at this Summit suggests that this is an issue that warrants the immediate attention of a joint committee of government, industry and consultants to address the challenges and potential solutions to reducing TOC across the complete lifecycle and value chain.

If you have questions about this event, please contact Tim Nichols by e-mail (timothy.nichols@siemens.com or phone (+1 513-576-3656).