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From
CAD User Mechanical Magazine Vol 17 No 06 - June/July
French
Yacht Architectural Firm Berret-Racoupeau Chooses PLM Solutions from
IBM and Dassault Systèmes to develop future yachts with CATIA V5
collaborative digital mock-up
Where would you put Naval Architecture?
Is it a mechanical or an architectural discipline? Is designing a boat
rather like designing a block of offices with a rather different
foundation to the traditional one, and using slightly different
materials to bricks and mortar – or is it a complex mechanical
project, incorporating a massive system of propulsion, rather like an
aeroplane, but designed to sail the Seven Seas, rather than the skies.
It wasn’t until I spoke to Ed Popko, Worldwide Market Manager,
Shipbuilding, at IBM PLM Solutions, that I realised how vast the
subject was, and how designing and building boats encompasses all of
the problems encountered in any major manufacturing operation – to the
nth degree! Small wonder that there are few companies – IBM PLM
Solutions being one of possibly just two - capable of integrating all
of the disciplines involved in the process. IBM PLM Shipbuilding
Solutions – a range of specific shipbuilding design and PLM tools -
was developed by Dassault Systèmes, IBM’s French counterpart.
Eschewing the traditional ship-building industry, we looked at the
tremendous developments taking place in leisure ship –or boat –
building. Here, Ed breaks it down into different segments. At the
bottom of the scale are the small scale yacht and powerboat builders,
producing small quantities of leisure craft to individual designs in
small shipyards. Above that, there are the commercial boatyards,
turning out luxury and racing boats. We have an interesting example of
such a company later on in this article. At the top of the tree are
the emerging super-yachts – mega-yachts approaching 100m in length –
that are fitted out with the most advanced and luxurious equipment
available. It is the latter two of these that concern IBM PLM
Solutions most of all, and it is probably correct to say that some of
these could not be built without the assistance of the latest
workflow, integration and development solutions on the market.
Yacht builders are also in a bit of a squeeze, as they have to compete
with the mainstream shipbuilders, and, increasingly, off-continent
competition, forcing them to rethink their business models. Although
demand for such boats is healthy, the economics of build/design are
shifting, and builders are forced to adapt IT and new methods of
tooling.
Developers of high end, custom, yachts – a market growing at 6-8% a
year - are adopting practices found in modern shipyards. The
multi-millionaire specifiers of such boats demand the utmost in
luxury, style, comfort, safety, sea-worthiness, electronics equipment,
extreme noise and vibration control and performance. They are, after
all, a symbol of the owners wealth and status, and are subject,
throughout the design and build cycle, to the idiosyncracies of the
world’s wealthiest men. Owners are pro-active, and super-critical in
all areas.
More mundane design and analysis, if that word can be used at all, is
carried out on mouldings and composite materials used in the designs,
complex routing of pipes and cables, HVAC, kinematics, and even human
interaction and ergonomic operation of the boat. IBM has developed CAA
partnerships with leading software developers to handle mainstream
analysis, electrical design, FEA, and provide links to CFD for noise
and vibration control - and to ascertain how the boat will handle the
roughest seas.
Despite the money being lavished on such boats, owners want smaller
crews and lower operating and maintenance costs. Some of the larger
super-yachts need a full time crew of between 15 to 30 seamen. Every
inch of space on board, outside of the passenger areas, is critical –
likened by Ed Popko, to the extreme allocation of accommodation versus
equipment on a submarine.
This has to be set alongside provision for swimming pools, helipads
and generous amounts of passenger accommodation, far surpassing that
found in luxury hotels. Materials have to be of the finest quality
throughout. The comfort of the passengers is paramount.
Design tools have, therefore, to cope with an extraordinary amount of
complexity, the generation of multiple alternative designs, and be
capable of revision at any time. Island programmes are no longer
sufficient, and all software has to be capable of full integration,
linking everything from the architects office to downstream
production, the back office, procurement, ordering, scheduling, cost
estimation and even yacht yard management. It doesn’t stop there,
either. Whenever a super order is placed, the insurance brokers want
to get involved, and they can get mighty irritated having to plough
through non-integrated systems to update their quotes. Product
Lifecycle management also plays a part, as such yachts frequently
change hands, and new owners and operators, as well as maintenance
yards, need access to all of the production material
Re-use of design solutions is a critical aspect of cost optimisation.
Despite the luxury, costs have to be kept to a minimum, and IBM’s
Knowledge Based Engineering solutions, the re-working of designs to
fit different classes of boats, especially in the commercial boat
building sector, plays a large part in this.
IBM PLM Solutions
How did IBM get involved in all of this? IBM has been involved in
shipbuilding for years, (It already has partnerships with the US Navy
and many yacht builders), and has spent the last five of them
inaugurating a complete raft of PLM solutions specifically for the
shipbuilding industry. Release 14 of IBM’s PLM Solutions included a
further 25 applications for yacht builders needs, covering areas such
as outfitting and conceptual design. For many years, IT involvement b
y shipbuilders was reliant on large scale computer systems. The major
breakthrough that allowed wider integration of all aspects of
shipbuilding came about because CATIA and ENOVIA, IBM’s CAD Modelling
and PLM solutions, are all based on Windows systems.
The advantage of a common platform allows a wider range of ship and
boat builders, engineers, naval architects and equipment suppliers to
collaborate more readily with each other. This is aptly demonstrated
by French yacht builders, Berret-Racoupeau, one of France’s largest
yacht architectural firms.
Berret-Racoupeau
Berret-Racoupeau Yacht Design, based in La Rochelle, has selected IBM
and Dassault Systèmes Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions for
development of its new boat designs. A prestigious name in the
internationally-renowned French recreational boat industry,
Berret-Racoupeau specialises in the design of serial production
sailboats, luxury sailboats, and racing boats. Co-founder Jean Berret
has designed a large number of winning racing sailboats and has played
a key role in the success of major industry players such as Bénéteau,
Fountaine-Pajout, and Wauquiez. The choice of IBM PLM Shipbuilding
Solutions is an important step in the firm’s 30-year commitment to
service, innovation, comfort, and performance. Berret-Racoupeau Yacht
Design has specialised in performance sailing yachts for more than 30
years. In recent years, the office has become increasingly involved in
the design of super yachts, mono-hulls, and catamarans, and is now
working on a new 95’ luxury catamaran whose design offers
unprecedented performance and enjoyment in catamaran sailing.
With IBM PLM Solutions’ CATIA V5 naval architect package,
Berret-Racoupeau will have in a single solution all the design tools
currently only available in separate, specialised applications,
eliminating the difficulty of merging product data from different
sources, enable concurrent engineering in a collaborative 3D
development environment, and facilitate reuse of existing data for the
design of boats within the same product line.
“In order to design the wide and various range of boats we design, we
are obliged to use a series of specialised, yet separate tools,” said
Olivier Racoupeau, associate chairman, Berret-Racoupeau. “With the
industry solution approach of Dassault Systèmes and IBM, we can
optimise and integrate our design process. The integration of naval
architectural design principles within CATIA V5 enables us to propose
more complete and innovative project studies, with the added benefit
of data continuity.”
"What the marine industry needs is a simple and affordable way to
design complicated structures," said Jean Berret, associate chairman,
Berret-Racoupeau. "CATIA V5 is easy to use and allows us to design and
validate space, fit, function and appearance of the different parts of
a boat before it goes into production. An additional benefit is that
these virtual models can be rapidly modified giving us greater
flexibility to create innovative yacht designs in multiple versions
that satisfy even our most demanding customers."
“We developed the CATIA V5 naval architect package to give firms such
as Berret-Racoupeau revolutionary design features,” said Arnaud
Poujardieu, director, Dassault Systèmes Solutions France, in charge of
implementation at Berret-Racoupeau. “For example, the software
automatically takes into account technical specifications of standard
components such as the boat’s mass and centre of gravity to calculate
optimum stability and balance. It’s a cutting-edge way to design
projects that increases design quality, reduces development time, and
cuts costs.”
http://www.berret-racoupeau.com
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