LARGE DENSE SHIP FUNCTIONAL ENGINEERING PLANNING FOR A NEW DESIGN-BUILD

If one is in or around a shipyard very long, one is bound to hear the phrase, “We have to finish the engineering before we build the ship.” While this phrase has some truth to it, finishing all the engineering is not a feasible reality; what is more accurately meant is that we must finish the functional engineering before we build the ship. Many shipbuilders are pressed by many internal and external factors to begin building ships before the functional engineering is complete, yet this is the single largest factor by far that impacts unanticipated scope, schedule, and cost growth during production. Even in moderate sized vessels of a three to five thousand tons displacement, the unanticipated schedule and cost impacts of poor execution of functional engineering discipline to production can be measured in years and up to 65-80% cost growth of the total program for the company if not for the customer.

THE CHALLENGE

Typically customers and shipyards will base their estimates upon historic costs of previous builds with refreshed quotes on equipment and material, and when technology was not as it is today, these were roughly sound bases of estimating assuming that the new builds will roll out very similar to past. The reality is that in today’s environment with the technology refresh velocity, the transformation of environmental regulations, and the fast pace of increased mission requirements, the magnitude of change in both essential ship characteristics and in the multitude of details in each and every system, the system-of-systems development processes of the past will not satisfy the design requirements of today. In addition, because of the diversity brought about by specialization in engineering fields, the requirements of specifications will require the integration of a “team of teams” made up of different specialized engineering and design houses making technical service contracts a critical proficiency for any company undertaking the lead for the design. In short, the processing of engineering and design of large, dense, complex ships that was once done almost exclusively internal to a shipyards engineering department will rarely behave in the same way. This in itself has a way of building in significant risk to costs estimates for non-recurring engineering based on previous programs.

FUNCTIONAL ENGINEERING

The functional engineering phase of engineering-design-build is different from all other phases of engineering and design because of the necessity of reaching a maturity level in system definition that is highly complete in totality.?In concept design, the ship only has to reach a level of definition with an adequate set of requirements that supports the high probability of a ship in concept to fulfill its value proposition in which it is allocated future funding for the program to continue. In contrast, once the functional design is determined, it is not necessary to produce every detail before the start of construction so long as these details and material arrive in sufficient time for proper planning and entry into the production process. In the detail design phase one can set the point of the start fab milestone for each unit and back up to the left in time to determine the need date for the production drawings, and the work can proceed in the typical waterfall timeline making efficient use of the engineering-design resources at manageable levels. Shipyards are so used to follow-on ship contracts that the quick verification cycles of updating configurations between differences from ship to ship can lead to a deceptive reliance that the work in designing a new class is similar to their normal activity without having an appreciation of the magnitude of change that must be addressed.

Functional engineering is different because it is the resolution of many different engineering requirements into an integrated whole. When major changes occur the impacts can ripple through the entire design. For instance if a hull configuration changes, the structure upon which every other system is based can cause major ramifications such as stability and operational behavior of the vessel, tank capacities, propulsion thrust requirements, power loads, compartment spatial arrangements, etc. Or for example if major power requirements for mission systems are changed, generator sizing, fuel capacity requirements, power distribution switchboards, arrangements, etc. can all be impacted and have major changes cascading throughout the design. If detail design and construction have begun in earnest before the functional design is complete, then not only is there the cost of reworking the engineering, but the intricate and costly Computer Aided Design (CAD) modeling with have to be redone as well as potential cost and schedule delays from ripout, scrap, remanufacture, installation and test to the new design configuration will be incurred.

SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

It is amazing that among the population of engineers that have professed their familiarization and appreciation for systems engineering so many seem to experience and be caught in the first peak of the “Dunning-Krueger effect” (an uninformed overconfidence). Where this confidence comes from is of little significance, yet the prevalence of its existence in the lack of appreciation for what a fully integrated and reconciled design during the functional design actually means is of critical importance. The cost of technical complexity is not linear, it is exponential. The difficulty of reconciling a design for a commercial car or bulk carrier of one size is not multiplicatively scalable to a security or defense vessel of many times its displacement.

When evaluating specifications for ship construction contracts, the sheer magnitude and number of systems required that must work together is enormous, especially when there are integrated control systems and high levels of automation in order to reduce manning; the nature and number of the interfaces across these systems must systematically be managed and quickly moves into the tens of thousands of specific interfaces that must be reconciled and balanced with each successive move forward of the design process. As previously stated, not every detail of the design must be stated during functional design, but there must be 1) enough hard specification to identify the equipment with its operational requirements, 2) spatial arrangements of the equipment throughout the ships envelope, 3) the specification of service media conduits, whether they be in pipe, cable, plenums, etc. with enough routing information (3 dimensional diagrams) to accurately determine resistance, head pressures, motive to achieve flow rates, etc., and 4) the necessary engineering calculations of the system by which to demonstrate the very high probability of the system’s operation as designed. With these specific details for power, fluids, serviceable media (ventilation, chilled water, etc.) the system engineering function can reconcile power, tanks, operations, time on station, performance, stability, manpower and human-in-the-loop, and many other factors and margins that typically exist and must be maintained as top level requirements, explicit and implicit, from the contract specifications.

THE DESIGN SPIRAL PROCESS

System engineering in shipbuilding has a long history of proficiency, so much so that it may be in danger of appearing trite or common place to a degree that it is often overlooked and underappreciated; this may have been exacerbated by its typically exclusive application to naval architecture. With many ships now being required for highly specific missions such as ice-breaking, research, fast transport, or defense the ship characteristics, even though they have been of the highest level of importance, are increasing in the demands for integration to ensure their functional capabilities in the new and increasing challenging environments. Ship propulsion and operations, acoustics, power, signature, etc. are reshaping once conventional hulls into highly specialized configurations and characteristics with tighter tolerance on acceptable variances. Even since the 1980s, the concentration on reduced manning has brought increased levels of automation and Reliability, Maintainability, Availability (RM&A) to the extent that we are now dealing with completely unmanned vessels that drive potential redundancy and re-configurability on station far beyond what has been required in the past from not having personnel on board and deferring service, maintenance, replenishment to greater lengths between human interventions. The process for allocating requirements, validating system demands, and reconciling summary level performance, load and consumption rates has been the design spiral process. The design spiral process has a lot to offer in illustrating the nature of the functional engineering phase design maturity requirements to shipbuilding companies and their stakeholders.

In the spiral design illustration typically used to describe the maturity process for naval architecture, the application of milestones representing PDR and CDRs have been added with the entire section in grey being related to functional design. While the Concepts of Operation (ConOps) for the ship are the most attention getting and publicly debated part of the project and will drive the external macro requirements for performance of the overall system as well as the overall configuration of the vessel, the internal reconciled compliant integration requirements among the distributed systems is just as important and will be the harder challenge. This is because all the systems and different engineering disciplines that come to bear and are typically required for larger more complex ships. Initially, the focus is on the naval architecture equation, and rightfully so because all other systems will be affected by the necessity of achieving lock down on these elements so that all other mission, auxiliary, and other systems can be more substantially defined.?

If the critical design process were to be segmented into three design spirals ending with a Final Critical Design Review, it can be seen that the majority of Hull (100), Propulsion (200), and Power (300) must be in a state of high maturity before the end of the second cycle; Armament (700) is included in this group because of its typical space, weight, and support media associated with these systems. The Mission (400), Auxiliary (500), and Outfitting and Furnishings (600) must be developed sufficiently to bring a high level of certainty to their estimated weight, space, power, and other service media by the first CDR milestone so that the core design of the ship from 100-300 will not have be redone. Only the top level system designations are shown in the illustration, but specifying the level of completeness should be accomplished as exit criteria for the intermediate and final CDR milestones down to the third digit ESWBS designation level. The emphasis of the first ICDR is the determination of the essential ship (SWBS 100-300, 700) and reliable estimates for the essential attributes of the other systems (SWBS 400-600). The second ICDR must achieve an earnest attempt at full reconciliation of the entire suite of ship systems. The remaining cycle of the Critical Design Review process is the finalizations of all analyses related to the many different systems engineering criteria.

A design team will not want to neglect the requirements for control systems and automation, human factors analysis or system RM&A until the end because from these and other like required systems engineering analysis is likely to reveal the need for redundant equipment, routing, and other requirements; the discoveries can have major impacts to previous work thought to be completed. In addition, there is a tendency for certain things in shipbuilding to be incorrectly considered to be ancillary that drive massive cost because of their neglect in early phases. The prime example is miscellaneous electrical equipment. There is nothing more destructive to quality, cost, and schedule in production than when units have been built, erected and moving toward area completion when changes start pouring out from engineering from the necessity of making way for the so called “innocuous” miscellaneous electrical items. These items when finally placed can impact compartment arrangements (foundations, piping, cabling, services [hvac, chill water, etc.], insulation, and a host of other things, and the cost is exponential to what it would have been had it been engineered to the level necessary when it should have been. By the time the last design spiral is reached, the systems should be stable with only minor adjustments being made to reconcile the entire design to the functional requirements and specified margins in capacities. The one exception to this is in the area of software coding; the fact that software, if it does not drive physical configuration items, can continue for some time in order to gain efficiency in schedule continuing even after the program moves fully into Detail Design & Construction (DD&C).

SUBCONTRACTING TECHNICAL SERVICES CONTRACTS

During studies, proposals, and in the concept design phases of a ship program for a new class there is a wonderful energy exuberated by the different teams developed across the industry to compete for new innovative design-build contracts. Typically many design houses and specialty engineering firms assemble some of their very best to participate and will even invest significantly to be a part of the innovation that occurs during the early phases of ship development. The challenge is that when contracts are finally awarded for the full scope of an engineering-design-construction contract, few are prepared to address the technical services subcontracting challenges required for successful management at the scale and levels of discipline required for a significant design for a new class of ships, especially if it is significantly larger than what the shipyard is customarily used to.

Shipbuilding companies that are focused on the procurement of systems, equipment, material, and subcontract production scopes of work, are unlikely to be prepared for all the many nuances of technical service contracting and these necessary proficiencies will not be in heightened state of proficiency when the company is racing to get contracts in place and get the program moving. In many cases these shipyards will rely heavily on the use of fixed-price contracts to gain a sense of control of the potential cost of future developments, but this is a false sense of security. When every member is not providing everything to perfection in terms of quality and schedule, there will be multitudes of instances able to be pointed to for the justification and use as the basis for claims for exceptions, waivers, or requests for equitable adjustment. The reason for this is that, with the larger, denser, diverse systems intense ships, the amount of interdependencies between the prime contractor for the engineering and design and the subcontractors, there will be many situations where each party is not hitting quality or schedule requirements to the fullest degree. When the critical flow of these products and their subsequent dependencies have not been worked out in a detailed plan with the appropriate risk and opportunity mitigation and capture plans and the necessary contractual controls and provisions implemented, the impacts of rework, delays, changes, and other evolutions on the program can move the diverse engineering team into gridlock. The larger the team and the more diversified in the amount of subcontracted membership assembled, the greater will be the risk of schedule delays and costs will exponentially increase.

CONTRACT SEGMENTATION OF FUNCTIONAL DESIGN

The implications of what is occurring across the industry that is more applicable the larger, denser, and more complex the ships are, is that the impact of not having functional design compete is a major driver of cost increases in hundreds of millions of dollars and schedule delays in terms of years from when the customer initially anticipated delivery of the ships. Even with the biggest shipyards in the nation that maintain an extensive engineering complement, when a good deal of time has passed between lead ship contracts, 5-10 years, the critical systems engineering talent, processes, and discipline typically required has been so greatly reduced that it will take years before this competency is fully reestablished. The implication of this is that initially it is better to contractually segment the functional engineering of a new class of ship separate from the DD&C contract; even when contracts segment with the functional engineering from the DD&C by separate Contract Line Items Numbers (CLINs), the customer is obligated to a design package that is highly specific to a shipyard and obligated to options for the construction of the ships. If conditions were reached where re-compete were attractive, the non-recurring costs of making such a change would be astronomical to such a degree to potentially compromise the initial value proposition upon which the original funding for the program was approved. The relationship of the functional design to the DD&C statement of work is responsible for many of the cost increases to ship acquisitions; it is not simply a cost increase issue but a process effectiveness issue in the ship acquisition community.

With the introduction of functional design contracts a better understanding of the true nature of cost and schedule requirements from the many disciplines involved in the preliminary design phases requiring satisfaction would be revealed. The U.S. Navy publishes good and extensive guidelines for the entrance and exit criteria for the different engineering milestones associated with their formal acquisition process that are seldom enforced to the degree that is reasonably expected by sound engineering and design disciplines because the acquisition program offices are also under tremendous pressure to make progress in similar fashion as the shipyard. The separation of these contracts and the requirement to actually satisfy the milestone criteria would improve the guidelines and criteria, better define the value and clarity of the levels of analysis required, and ensure a higher probability of successful execution of all programs in DD&C contract phases. This change would also enable a better concentration on the quality and completeness of this critical engineering phase by introducing direct competition for prime contract position between shipyards (that are typically biased toward construction) and the larger design houses (more likely to possess the wider breadth of engineering capability for the complete scope of work for a prime contract in completing a functional design). The increased competition specific to functional design would introduce a whole new level of discipline in rigorously completing functional engineering phases as they are intended and develop standardization for what technical documentation should be the basis to be used for open competition among the shipbuilding industry.

THE TRANSITION TO DETAILED DESIGN PHASE

In closing, one subject is worth addressing. The “Transition to Design” phase of the engineering activities between functional design and detailed design (where production drawings are developed and published) is one of the reasons why functional engineering has been in recent years included in the scope of DD&C contracts; modeling can and should begin as systems reach levels of maturity that will enable the compression of the total ship acquisition schedule. The challenge with this approach is that with the magnitude of the entire scope under the same cost and schedule constraints to perform, in many cases there is undue pressure to begin the subsequent activities before the systems have reached a high level of probability and confidence in their stability. This results in models that have are constantly plagued with outdated content that have been changed, in some cases many times over, and the cost of the rework of the engineering is as costly or more so than its initial development. This is an area of continued study to determine in what ways model development can proceed in way while the functional design is still in progress, but make a quality data set readily available and able to be used by the shipyard that will need to carry the modeling to its completion in order to develop the detailed design necessary to support their production facility.