Early estimation of work contents for planning the one-of-a-kind production by the example of shipbuilding

Hamburg University of Technology, Institute of Production Management and Technology, 21073 Hamburg, Germany.

Abstract

A transparent, reliable early estimation of work contents is crucial for capacity planning in shipyards. Yet most of the shipyards rely on practical experience of specialized production planners, for the early capacity estimation, which are prone to errors, as a bill of material is not available in the early stages of production planning in the one-of-a-kind production. This is due to a yet unfinished construction of the ship. This paper will discuss a method for creating a computer-supported, transparent, more reliable way for the estimation of work content, at an early planning stage of a one-of-a-kind production, using a generated bill of material. The bill of material is generated automatically using parametrized templates and contains steel and outfitting parts. Therefore a tool has been developed that generates steel and outfitting parts from parametrized templates. From the bill-of-material, the work content in hours is estimated by linking the parts in the bill-of-material to a process. The operation time can then be calculated by dividing the work content by the capacity of the work system. The operation time can then be used for scheduling the one-of-a-kind production.