Development of an ERP model for modularly designed ships for medium scale shipyards - I: Manufacturing management

Abstract

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has become something of a magic wand for large manufacturing industries because of its capability to integrate different manufacturing modules via online networks and hence providing one window access thereby making the whole manufacturing process integrated with a reduction in inventory. Ship production is not a manufacturing process in a strict sense because of high customisation, widely varying scales of operations and less compatibility between various production processes. Ship production is planned in an activity driven network scheduling system ingeneral and is assumed more as a construction process or assembling process rather than a manufacturing process. An ERP principle is based upon information management and process integration and hence is effective in all manufacturing processes that need to integrate the processes for streamlined, lean and synergised manufacturing, A modular approach to design has been regarded as the new logic for product design and its organisation, as it helps design and manufacturing firms to cope with the present volatile and turbulent environment. This combines the ERP principle and modular approach to design. The ERP principle is used to design the manufacturing management system for the modularly designed ships. In this series of two papers, we discuss development of an ERP model for a medium scale shipyard. Part I, discusses a methodology for manufacturing management: planning and integration of ship manufacturing processes for the modularly designed ships in a medium size shipyard. The manufacturing management is integration driven and is based upon activity based network scheduling. In this work, it is shown that by combining network scheduling, ERP and modular approach to design, the ship manufacturing process will be more streamlined, better planned and executed.