Enhancing issue management in the shipbuilding lifecycle

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A white paper issued by: Siemens PLM Software.

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Answers for industry.

White Paper

Global competition and the modernization of the fleet is forcing shipyards to improve their efficiencies when designing and manufacturing today’s advanced ships. As part of this push for competitiveness, shipbuilders need to build ships and ship owners need to maintain their fleets as cost effectively as possible. To do that, they need to implement systems that can handle unexpected events as they occur, and enable a formal, controlled process to analyze, validate and solve the inevitable issues that arise during the life of a vessel.

Siemens PLM Software

Enhancing issue management

in the shipbuilding lifecycle

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White paper | Enhancing issue management in the shipbuilding lifecycle

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Executive summary ... 3

Understanding issues and issue management ... 4

Linking issue management and project success ... 5

Defining potential issues ... 7

Mitigating the negative effect of issues ... 8

Synchronizing systems to support issue management ... 9

Using CAPA to systematically resolve discrepancies ... 10

Providing the perfect home for CAPA and issue management ... 11

Conclusion ... 17

In shipbuilding, issues such as problems, defects and requests come up throughout a ship’s lifecycle, and every shipyard has to manage this continuous stream of issues until resolution or closure. If an issue has arisen because of an identified nonconformance, then the shipyard has to identify the contributing or affected design and/or manufacturing activities, find the root cause and take the necessary corrective actions. On the other hand, shipyards also undertake preventive actions, which are designed to monitor trends and evaluate risks in order to prevent nonconformances and identify areas for improvement.

A product lifecycle management (PLM) system can provide an enterprise-wide solution for capturing various forms of incidents, defects and nonconformances, providing a formal process for systematically investigating, analyzing and resolving issues while streamlining the definition of measures to prevent recurrences, and reporting the results. The control points of such a solution need to cover every facet of shipbuilding, including requirements, regulations, design, production, materials, equipment and facilities and maintenance.

A specific PLM implementation may fall short if it is restricted to basic product data management. This paper explains in detail the issues that arise during a ship’s lifecycle and how they can be effectively managed in a PLM system.

Executive summary

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4 An issue is something that has a negative impact on a project

and requires resolution for the project to proceed success- fully. Issue management is the process of identifying, resolving and controlling issues that can influence the overall scope, time, cost, risk and quality of a project in a timely manner.

Issues can come from virtually anywhere (customer, design, production planning, suppliers, etc.) and may be called by many names: nonconformance, defect, discrepancy, observation, or even a failed test result. Some examples of issues are:

the noise level in a habitability space is too high (failed test

result), a welder is waiting for a grinder to come and finish the grinding (observation), or 12 millimeter (mm) plates are heavily pitted (defect). Users can look at a report or dash- board and notice a trend, and that trend can be turned into a new issue.

An issue is a matter of concern or interest; something that is an unexpected result due to the use of or documentation of a product, service or process, or may be of interest because it is related to an improvement. An issue is not necessarily a problem, but it does require some sort of a response process.

Understanding issues

and issue management

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5 A manufacturer’s well-earned reputation for building quality

and reliable products in time can easily be impacted if they fail to react quickly with a fact-based response when issues arise. This can lead to delayed deliveries, increased risk of liability and decreased customer satisfaction, all of which can impact the bottom line.

To get an idea about some of the types of issues that can seriously undermine a shipbuilding project or program, we can refer to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) 2005 report entitled, “Defense Aquisitions – Improved Management Practices Could Help Minimize Cost Growth in Navy Shipbuilding Programs.” The report looked at cost growth in four classes of ships (two ships in each class) that accounted for the majority of the funding for new shipbuilding as well as the prior year’s bills, focusing on ships with construction contracts that were more than 30 percent complete at the time the review began.

Increases in labor hour and material costs accounted for 78 percent of the cost growth in shipbuilding construction contracts, while overhead and labor rate increases accounted for 17 percent. Navy-furnished equipment – including radar and weapon systems – represented 5 percent of the cost growth, while the percentage of overall cost growth due to shipbuilder construction costs was 95 percent (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Components of cost growth.¹

Shipbuilders cited a number of direct causes for the labor hour, material and overhead cost growth in the eight case study ships. Table 1 shows the reasons for labor hour increases for each ship that was studied.

Table 1: Reasons given by shipbuilders for growth in labor hours cost.¹

Linking issue management and project success

Case study ship

Reason for increase

DDG 91 Inexperienced laborers

Design upgrades that result in rework

DDG 92

Introduction of a new construction facility, setting workers back on the learning curve

Design upgrades that result in rework and workarounds

Strike increased number of hours needed to construct ship

CVN76

Less-skilled workers due to demands for labor on other programs at shipyard

Extensive use of overtime

Design changes resulting in rework

CVN 77

Late material delivery results in delays and workarounds

Design changes resulting in rework

LPD 17

Inexperienced subcontracted labor

Design difficulties led to doing work out of sequence and rework

Schedule delays

Transported workers to meet labor shortages

LPD 18 Increases in LPD 17 translated into more hours for LPD 18

SSN 774 Late material delivery

First-in-class design issues

SSN 775 Quality problems and design changes

Inclusion of non-recurring labor hours

Cost increase of Navy furnished equipment Overhead rate and labor rate increases

Material increases Labor hour increases 40%

5%

17%

38%

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6 The issues cited above are by no means unique to these

programs or the builders concerned, but are quite common in any contract for construction, conversion, overhaul or repair of commercial or naval ships, submarines and other craft.

From the perspective of this paper, the reasons cited were issues that were faced by shipyards in executing these contracts, albeit at a high level.

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7 Shipbuilding utilizes highly complex processes to design

and construct built-to-order products that meet customer requirements. This requires continuous interaction between the customer, the shipyard, suppliers and governing bodies through all phases of a shipbuilding project.

The major ship lifecycle phases and key processes where issues may potentially come up are:

1. Ship/system specification development 2. Design

a. Engineering quality assurance b. Ship design reviews

c. Configuration management review

d. Assessment of detailed design readiness to support production

e. Equipment qualification

f. Factory acceptance and first article testing g. Weight and moment control

h. Facility certification for dry docks, launch ways, weapons handling, etc.

3. Construction

a. Technical problems i. Nonconformances

ii. Government responsible for technical issues (mostly for Navy ships)

iii. Technical issues involving other regulatory bodies iv. General problems (issues not otherwise categorized) b. Shipbuilder production and engineering procedures c. Certification programs and systems certification

(particularly for Navy ships) d. Key events

e. Docking and ship movements

f. Shipbuilder’s module transportation and ship movement facilities

g. Industrial, environmental and safety compliance h. Integrated logistics support (ILS) activities

and products i. Ship alterations

4. Test

a. Test requirements, procedures and data b. Test events

c. Test and key event certifications 5. Delivery

a. Delivery certification 6. Post-delivery

7. In-service engineering support a. Ship class technical issues b. Planning yard

If an issue has arisen because of an identified nonconformance, then the shipyard has to identify the contributing or affected design and/or manufacturing activities, find the root cause and take the necessary corrective actions. On the other hand, shipyards also undertake preventive actions, which are designed to monitor trends and evaluate risks in order to prevent nonconformances and identify areas for improvement.

Drilling down further, Table 2 shows a list of issues that are typical in a shipyard/ship construction project.

Table 2: Typical issues in shipbuilding

Defining potential issues

Issue

Type Description

Welding Leg length of weld is more than requirement leading to waste of welding core and time Cutting Cutting stations empty

Drawing Drawings not released for Block #PD02, PD03 and PD04

Facility Crane AL138 at dry dock #2 has collapsed Quality Quality control has to check the pitted plates

after blasting

Drawing Superstructure drawings are not approved by Bureau Veritas

Facility Air conditioning is too low

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8 In today’s highly competitive environment, it is critical for

shipyards to be able to quickly and effectively identify and respond to issues originating anywhere in the value chain.

To achieve that, shipyards need to align the necessary lead- ership, business process and technology capabilities to start taking an enterprise approach to issue management.

Issue management is the process of identifying, analyzing, responding to and tracking issues that occur during a project.

Effective issue management provides a history of the entire process and the activities that each team member performed at a specific step. When issues are properly tracked and documented, individuals performing each step are able to solve problems much more effectively, and the entire process becomes much easier to manage. The overall goal of issue management is to protect the project from the negative impact of issues.

The steps in the issue management process are identifica- tion, analysis, response, tracking and reporting. The first three steps happen in sequence, while issue tracking and reporting happens throughout the process (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Steps in issue management (overview).

If a consumer of a deliverable has a problem or has identified a nonconformance, they need to report this problem/nonconformance. The user will report his or her observa- tions as an issue in the issue management system. The issue will be analyzed to determine if it is a user error, a question or a genuine issue that needs to be resolved. If the issue needs resolution, it will mature into a Corrective Action Preventive Action (CAPA). CAPA is a formal, controlled process for analyzing, validating and solving a problem. Users will determine the potential causes, corrective actions, preventive actions and measures for correcting this issue. If a set of deliverables must be changed to support the issue resolution, the user can change the CAPA into an engineering change request (ECR). From here, a change management process is initiated, a solution is created and it is provided to the end user (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Issue management and CAPA.

It should be noted that not all issues will go through this entire process and become a CAPA or change request. Some issues are user errors that are not reproducible; others are simply questions that need to be answered. Similarly, a CAPA may not result in an ECR. A CAPA may be closed because of a user error, or because a part works as designed, or for some other reason.

Mitigating the negative effect of issues

Track and report issues

Respond to issues Analyze issues

Identify issues

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9 Many shipyards across the world have deployed enterprise

resource planning (ERP) applications for inventory management, production scheduling and finance. Some shipyards have also invested in additional platforms – including PLM and customer relationship management (CRM) – to extend and deliver depth in functional areas that create synergies and competitive advantages for the company.

While issue management is a relatively new topic in shipbuilding compared to industries like electronics or life sciences/medical devices (e.g., structured quality systems are mandated for United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval/clearance in the life sciences/medical devices industry), many companies in these industries invest heavily in manpower and tools (CAPA solutions) to manage and respond to discrepancies. However, many waste these resources because they implement disconnected or manual systems, leaving routine channels of knowledge like PLM outside of the issue management solution. This fosters in- consistency between business operations and CAPA activities.

Disparate systems and data sources lead to several chal- lenges, including:

Rework and delays

No clear point of responsibility for reported issues

Inadequate analysis leading to incomplete or poor documentation

Inconsistent processes; CAPA executed in different ways at different locations

Repeat issues, having trouble identifying root causes

Manual processes required to correlate issues to deliverables

Lack of visibility into issues and priorities

Wasted effort hunting for information in different systems

Multiple IT systems managing CAPAs, e.g., SharePoint

Audit issues

Increased risk

One of the key benefits of a PLM-integrated CAPA solution is the ability to capture and share all defined issues, the decisions made, the completed analysis and the resolution of issues, all within the PLM environment. Such an integrated system can provide a vehicle for companies to resolve problems quickly, and supply invaluable reporting for performance metrics and trend analysis to help improve operations.

For example, it can answer questions such as:

What changes and how many changes were made against my product/process?

What complaints/nonconformances or defects were caused by my part, product or process?

How many changes were there?

What had to be done to resolve the complaints?

What were the major causes of rework?

Was requirements volatility the reason for the rework?

The Teamcenter® software Issue Management and CAPA solution from Siemens PLM Software can be used to control and systematically investigate any issue or discrepancy while building a repository of all actions and decisions involved in the correction, prevention and closure process.

Synchronizing

systems to support

issue management

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10 Various types of defects, failures, complaints and noncon-

formances are the first step in the issues management evaluation and may lead to a CAPA investigation and subse- quent change requests (CRs).

The issue management process is shown in Figure 4. Creating an issue is a simple process that can be done by virtually anyone in an organization. The issue management solution automatically generates an identifier, which quickly defines the issue with other parameters, thus creating an issue (Figure 8). If the user wishes to enrich the issue description, they can easily attach relevant documents or files to provide more insight into the issue.

Once the issue has been defined, it is easy to move the issue into a formal workflow. These can be out-of-the-box workflows or defined for a user organization’s specific resolution process.

Figure 4: Showing the issue management process.

CAPA focuses on the systematic investigation of discrepancies (failures and/or deviations) in an attempt to prevent their recurrence (corrective action) or to prevent occurrence (preventive action). CAPA is a common industry term for defining and formally resolving issues through a standard process.

The CAPA process is shown in Figure 5. The CAPA methodology provides a way to permanently solve the root cause and prevent a recurrence.

Figure 5: Pictured is the CAPA process.

Figure 6 shows how the issue management and CAPA processes are related. An issue management and CAPA solution covers the lifecycle of an issue, from the beginning through defining the corrective actions, requesting changes to deliverables and distributing the change to all affected parties.

The solution connects to virtually every aspect of a business through key control points, including sales and marketing, requirements, regulations, design, production, materials, equipment and facilities and maintenance.

Figure 6: Combining the issue management and CAPA process.

Using CAPA to systematically resolve discrepancies

Closure

• Understand the issue and impact

• Gather supporting documents

• Form cross functional team

• Associate related investigations

• Perfom root cause analysis

• Identify critical issue parameters

• Analyze trends, alternatives

• Refer past issues and solutions

• Arrive at a short term corrective action

• Devise long term preventive solution

• Create an implementation plan for approval

• Allocate resources

• Implement the solution

• Monitor effectiveness

• Record issue recurrence if any

• Restart in case of recurrence

• Review performance during veriﬁcation stage

• Get approval

• Close CAPA

Verify Monitor Implement

Action plan Investigate

root cause Review

Complete Complete

Remediate Deﬁne

Analyze

Investigate

Investigate root cause

Implement

CAPA

Monitor Review Deﬁne

Verify CAPA

Valid No CAPA

Corrective action

Preventive action

No

Close

Plan/test

Field services

org.

Supplier

Customer Complaints

Issue

Action plan

Yes

• Capture the issue with all required incident details

• Categorize issue by type, severity

• Associate any related issues

• Attach any supporting documents

• Analyze the issue for investigation

• Assess impact in terms of risk, severity, related product and time

• Review risk/trend analysis dash- board by product

• Investigate issue

• Record initial assessment and details

• Create action plan from templates

• Assign action items

• Fix issue for the speciﬁc event as appropriate

• Close issue or initiate corrective actions (CAPA) if required

• Monitor corrective action or CAPA status

• Seek approval upon complete resolution of the issue

Close Remediate Investigate

Analyze Deﬁne

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11 There are several reasons why a PLM platform can be used

to deploy an issue management and CAPA solution. First, the later a defect or nonconformance is identified, the more costly it is to rectify. Cost to close an issue is usually a function of when it is found. Secondly, nonconformances in manufacturing or construction often originate due to engineering or supplier issues. In both cases, PLM is well posi- tioned to manage nonconformances and drive the appropriate response since many of the participants are using data managed in the PLM environment. Users do not need to look through multiple systems to gather the necessary information to resolve the issue.

There are also technical reasons why PLM can serve as a strong platform for deploying an issue management and CAPA solution. PLM systems have strong functionality for enhancing workflow and change management, configurabil- ity, collaboration, document management, reporting, mobility, scalability and interoperability with other enterprise systems, such as ERP and manufacturing operations management (MOM) platforms. The CAPA process can be used to take advantage of these capabilities when integrated with PLM. Users have the capability to streamline the routing and delivery of CAPA processes, such as personnel notifications, escalating issues, approving CAPAs and communicating nonconformances to the broader enterprise.

Additionally, the simulation tools in PLM may be used to analyze some of the issues and help implement the changes quickly and in a cost-effective manner.

A PLM platform like Teamcenter provides the environment to manage all of the information related to a product, including customer priorities, requirements, design specifications and manufacturing plans. The Teamcenter Issue Management and CAPA solution provides closed-loop issue resolution for the formal process of corrective and preventive action activities. By leveraging Teamcenter’s sophisticated trace links and change management, users can participate in the problem definition and resolution process. Teamcenter captures the knowledge from these users and automatically conveys information about the issue, the resolution of the issue and affected deliverables.

The Issue Management and CAPA solution leverages the Teamcenter:

Common platform (workflows, sign-offs, inbox, search, escalations, email integration, etc.)

Change management (e.g., associating documents, items to an issue or CAPA, associating a schedule to a CAPA)

Schedule manager (to define the plan with timing to complete the CAPA)

Users will want to associate a series of actions or tasks to a CAPA. The CAPA solution provides the ability to associate one or more Teamcenter schedules to a CAPA. Users can assign the tasks to people in their organization and execute these schedule tasks using Teamcenter workflows and notifications. Another very useful aspect is the relationship between the deliverables managed in Teamcenter and the related issues, CAPAs and change requests. As an example,

we can consider a situation in which a pump impeller design has a nonconformance issue. The company determined they needed to perform the root cause analysis and define preventive actions. Thus, they created the CAPA. Based on that CAPA, an ECR was derived to update the manufacturing documentation related to this product. For example:

Nonconformance detected: measurement is out of spec

Containment: stop production, solve the problem and get production back online

Issue documented and related to the defective part

Issue verified and CAPA process begins

Root cause: tool wear

Corrective action: updated maintenance documentation

Preventive action: training course materials updated and rolled out to user community

Verification action: continuous monitoring of dimensions proved process change effective

Providing the perfect home for

CAPA and issue management

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12 All of these relationships can be easily seen by a Teamcenter

user (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Providing full traceability.

With the Teamcenter Issue Management and CAPA solution, users can easily find the problems with any deliverable. They can see a listing of the issues related to a deliverable, and the corrective actions against a deliverable. A report can be generated showing a summary of problem resolutions, either as per standard formats, or as per user configured formats (Figure 10). An 8D report is available out-of-the-box and contains each user, the issue, any results of the investigation and the resolution. Having this report at the designer’s fin- gertips provides a compact view of the issue and its

resolution. It will enable the designer on the next product iteration to leverage the lessons learned and the outcomes.

Let us take a second example in which a seawater filter is not usable because of production nonconformance (Table 3). In the Teamcenter Issue Management and CAPA solution, this is captured as Issue No. IR-000084 (Figure 8). After the issue is analyzed, it is decided to create a CAPA (Figure 9). The CAPA 8D report for this example is shown in Table 4.

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13 Table 3: Pictured is an example of an issue and CAPA in shipbuilding.

Figure 8: Example of an issue created in the Teamcenter Issue Management and CAPA solution.

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14 Figure 9: A CAPA created in the Teamcenter Issue Management and CAPA solution.

Table 4: CAPA 8D Report.

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15 Figure 10: Shown are reports created in the Teamcenter Issue Management and CAPA solution.

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16 People who need to interact with PLM information are no

longer bound to their workstations. New devices, such as smart phones, tablet computers and other handheld platforms, are becoming significant productivity tools for mobile professionals in engineering, manufacturing, services and support, or for any group that needs to work in multiple locations. The Teamcenter Mobility application facilitates decision-making in the context of an issue being addressed and at the time and place a decision needs to be made, thereby liberating users from their desks. With Teamcenter Mobility, one can create an issue or CAPA, view their issues and CAPAs and participate in a workflow to expeditiously move the issue or CAPA along the path to resolution.

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17 A PLM-based issue management and CAPA solution enables

shipbuilders to:

Provide users with feedback on their deliverables through full traceability and relationships, allowing them to find the complaints (and solutions) related to their deliverables

Allow users to make smarter decisions by increasing knowledge captured and documented within the PLM system, providing the “why” behind an engineering change

Increase user productivity through automation of CAPA processes via workflows and notifications

Reduce a customer’s information technology (IT) needs by reducing the need for, or eliminating other systems for tracking issues

As shipyards gear up to improve their efficiencies and competitiveness for designing and building ships that will form part of the future fleet, and ship owners seek to maintain their fleet as cost effectively as possible, they will need to implement systems that can handle unexpected events, and enable a formal, controlled process to analyze, validate and solve these problems. To this end, a PLM enabled-issue management and CAPA solution can:

Harmonize issue and resolution procedures with business operations for more consistent results

Reduce the manpower needed to correlate deliverables with issues

Reduce the risk of high-priority issues not getting resolved

Conclusion

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Footnotes

1. Defense Acquisitions – Improved Management Practices Could Help Minimize Cost Growth in Navy Shipbuilding Programs, United States Government Accountability Office (GAO-05-183), February 2005

References

1. Defense Acquisitions – Improved Management Practices Could Help Minimize Cost Growth in Navy Shipbuilding Programs, United States Government Accountability Office (GAO-05-183), February 2005 2. Improving Naval Shipbuilding Project Efficiency Through Rework Reduction, Clark, Deborah L., Howell Donna M., Wilson, Charles E., Naval Postgraduate School, USA, September 2007

3. Issue Management Plan Preparation Guidelines, Qatar National Project Management

http://www.pmonline.gov.qa/english/resources/5%20Issue%20Manag ement/Issue%20Management%20Preparation%20Guidelines.PDF 4. Project Management Methodology & Step-by-Step Guide to

Managing Successful Projects, City of Chandler, Arizona, USA http://www.chandleraz.gov/Content/PM000PMMethodologyGDE.pdf 5. P&W Marine Engineers winner of the ‘Most Innovative Marine

Industry Exported Product’ award, charterworld.com

(http://www.charterworld.com/news/pw-marine-engineers-winner- innovative-marine-industry-exported-product-award), August 2011

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About Siemens PLM Software

Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division, is a world-leading provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services with nine million licensed seats and 77,000 customers worldwide. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Siemens PLM Software helps thousands of companies make great products by optimizing their lifecycle processes, from planning and development through manufacturing and support. Our HD-PLM vision is to give everyone involved in making a product the information they need, when they need it, to make the smartest decision. For more information on Siemens PLM Software products and services, visit www.siemens.com/plm.

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