A Process, Tool, and Ontology for Performing and Describing Digital Deadweight Surveys

摘要

Weight surveys are required by the Navy and American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) throughout the lifecycle of a ship. Current weight survey processes (including dunnage, incline, planning yard, etc.) are largely manual, paper-based, and labor intensive. Improving weight survey processes will drive efficiencies for multiple stakeholders throughout the ship's lifecycle. The initial DDWS panel project was targeted at Fincantieri Marinette Marine's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Freedom class. The primary goal of this follow-on project is implementation of the DDWS tool for complex programs such as other surface combatants and carriers, allowing shipyard and planning yard weight survey teams to significantly reduce the time to conduct surveys and ensuring that those surveys more accurately reflect the as-built condition of the ship. The physical survey processes and use cases will be similar for all classes of ship, which should translate into being able to reuse most of the functionality of the current tablet application. Complications begin with the upstream sources of relevant data needed to perform the deadweight survey. Analyses were conducted with a variety of new construction and planning yard partners to understand the sources of relevant data and determine how best to manage and/or automate the overall process for larger and more complex environments. The sources of data could include CAD systems, PLM systems, spreadsheets, or a Navy system of record such as the Flooding Casualty Control System (FCCS). Additional, high priority features such as capturing and storing photos, access to attachments on the tablet device, support for multiple mobile platforms, and additional data elements not encountered in the initial project will be implemented during this effort. The ultimate goal of this project is implementation of the DDWS application at each of the participating shipyards. During the second year of the project, Praeses will continue to work with each shipyard to deploy a production version of the system in their environments, or possibly in a cloud-hosted environment depending on the security rules and preferences of each shipyard.