Conoship Naval Architect Wins VNSI Wim Timmersprijs Award

Conoship Naval Architect Jan van der Zee has won the VNSI Wim Timmersprijs award for his graduation work ‘Collaborative Design Tools’.

Conoship Naval Architect Wins VNSI Wim Timmersprijs Award

At this moment, data exchange between ship design applications is often done manually, which takes a lot of time and is prone to errors. Based on technologies developed in national research project Innovero, van der Zee created a connection between a ship stability application and a CAD-system to overcome these issues.

Based on a neutral data-exchange format, ship design data is exchanged real-time between the applications by means of an internet connection. These techniques make it possible to decrease the time of creating and updating design drawings such as the General Arrangement and Tank Arrangement and also the stability model to perform (damage) stability calculations with. This results in the possibility to perform critical calculations like damage stability earlier in the design process, showing any bottlenecks earlier and makes it possible to optimize the design earlier in the design process.

Conoship Naval Architect Wins VNSI Wim Timmersprijs Award

The technology can either be used on a local computer, in a Local Area Network, or globally over the internet, thereby taking a step towards ‘collaborative design’. A concept which is already widely used in the automotive industry. Also, the need for one integrated system which covers all aspects of ship design disappears, letting companies use the tools they have experience with and already use for years or maybe decades.

To further develop these technologies, Conoship participates in a new EU research project, called SMARTYards. The purpose of this project is to strengthen and maintain the global position of European SME shipyards and design offices. In this project, multiple technology areas are covered: from ‘Design Methods and Tools‘ and ‘Production Preparation and Planning’ to ‘Welding and Assembly’. Conoship focusses on ‘Design Methods and Tools’ and within this area Conoship wants to take the development of these techniques to the next level and the goal is to develop a working prototype together with other partners involved.

Conoship, March 7, 2014