China Shipbuilding NDRI Boosts Digital Tech Application

Yu Zhihong

The world is accelerating the transformation from the era of industrial economy to the era of digital economy.Speeding up digital development and building digital China are the inevitable requirements for China to adapt to the new changes in the development situation,building new national competitive advantages and building a modern socialist country in an allround way.CSSC China Shipbuilding NDRI Engineering Co.,Ltd.is fully implementing the new development concept,with a new generation of digital technology application as the main effective means,comprehensively promoting the digital transformation of design and EPS project business,focusing on building digital technology ecology and management ecology,to energize design,facilitate earnings to EPC,enable customers to increase value,and promote the company service mode transformation and business optimization.

Strive to build a digital industrial ecology

Starting from the top-level design,NDRI has clearly taken the building of “digital service platform” as the leading industry of the company's new business development in its high-quality development strategy and the “14th Five-Year” development plan.Focusing on the R&D,management and application and promotion of digital technology,NDRI has carefully organized and formulated the Application and Research Plan of Digital Technology,and defined the development goals and paths of technology application and development;and formulated the three-year action plan for shipyard projects to effectively guide the popularization and application of technology.At the same time,they participated in the preparation of national,provincial and municipal 3D technical standards,further improved the development level of digital technology,and gradually established the Comprehensive Management Coordination Operation Guidance,Unified Technical Regulations for Application,Application Operation Manual and other company-level standards,laying a foundation for the popularization and application of digital technology.

In terms of strengthening core technologies,NDRI has established a digital technology system around four aspects: 3D design,construction management,digital operation and maintenance,and digital algorithm,focusing on stepping up the R&D and application of digital design,digital simulation,digital construction,and digital O&M.Meanwhile,combined with the practical application of demonstration projects,the institute has continued to ramp up research push of core technology,and further elevate their core technology capability and comprehensive market competitiveness.

In improving application ability,NDRI has established the digital platform innovation center,give play to advantages of core tech and data accumulation in the field of shipyard planning and design,formed the new design and O&M service mode driven by “domain knowledge +industrial data+model algorithm”,solving the actual pain point problem oriented to industrial Internet specific scenarios such as infrastructure design and O&M,intelligent diagnosis and maintenance of large equipment,green environmental protection assessment and energy saving.In the meantime,relying on the company’s hydraulic center,process center,structure center and EPC operation center,NDRI has pushed all professional 3D digital building information modeling (BIM)technology application,established 3D digital BIM technology application evaluation mechanism,to ensure the promotion of 3D digital application ability.

In strengthening personnel training,centering on the digital technology promotion and application,NDRI has targeted training and building of talent team for high quality development and transformation,complete with a group of young chief engineers,so that they spearheaded in major projects.The institute appointed a group of young project managers in key projects,appointed youth technical backbones as discipline directors.At the same time,the institute has formulated a special training plan for 3D digital technology,carried out technical training at all levels,and cultivated a number of professional digital tech R&D and application talents.

Furthermore,in order to improve the level of the company's digital technology,enhance innovative thinking,and improve the participation of employees in the application of digital technology,NDRI has continuously ramped up its publicity and promotion efforts to create a strong cultural atmosphere of digital technology.In the annual working meeting,the staff congress and other important meetings,the institute leaders emphasized the importance of the application and promotion of digital technology,shared the R&D and application situation,and leaders in charge personally led the promotion of full professional participation in the application of digital technology.NDRI has established a digital technology column on the company's Intranet,and held BIM technology application and structural innovation design competition from time to time,continuously increasing publicity and accelerating the application and promotion of digital technology.

Take application of digital tech as an effective means

In recent years,with the in-depth study on digital tech R&D,NDRI has continuously stepped upd the promotion of technology application,practiced in a large number of engineering projects,and achieved good results.

In terms of digital design technology,focusing on value creation,NDRI gradually applied the technical achievements to practice,formed digital data such as design sample documents,parameter database and component database,which provided basic services for the whole life cycle O&M.On the design model,they optimized the construction design,guaranteed the efficient connection of design and construction;avoided the inter-professional conflicts,and realized the collaborative optimization of professional model,and made the three-dimensional scheme more intuitive and realistic.Digital design technology has also been well applied in water area projects,industrial building projects,non-standard design and other projects.

In the application of digital simulation technology,NDRI has further solved many difficult problems in the design process.In the process scheme demonstration,structure simulation analysis,fluid simulation analysis,energy consumption simulation analysis,sunshine simulation analysis,lighting simulation analysis,acoustic simulation analysis and multi-objective performance analysis,the design level has been greatly improved.In the application of many projects,especially in the CNOOC Tianjin intelligent production line project,through the simulation data to verify and support the process scheme,they further improved the overall efficiency of the process scheme,and provide better services for customers.

In terms of digital construction,through the promotion and application of digital technology in the whole process of project construction,NDRI has further improved the refined control ability of the production process,and the technology in construction deepening design and construction simulation design has become increasingly mature.In the CSSC Jiangnan Shipbuilding Section Workshop project,NDRI vigorously promoted the application of digital technology,it only took 3 months to complete the main body lifting of the steel structure,the workshop construction period was shortened from 24 months to 10 months.At the same time,In the construction process featuring high frequency and high intensity,the rework rate was reduced by 95%,substantially improving production efficiency.In CSSC Bohai Shipbuilding project,simultaneous application of 3D digital BIM technology was effected in the design process,the whole process tracking was employed to the preliminary design and construction drawing design as well as the deepening design of the steel structure,electromechanical and containment structure in the construction stage,modelling was completed before construction,solving the concerns of the owner in time.

In terms of digital O&M,through many years of continuous research and development,NDRI has established a digital operation and maintenance platform for ship infrastructure services,given full play to its comprehensive advantages in the shipbuilding industry overall planning,large-scale equipment,system integration and other specialties.Based on the 3D digital BIM technology delivery model and the shipyard operation data,using next-generation information technologies such as industrial big data and artificial intelligence,they have formed a new mode of design and O&M service driven by “domain knowledge +industrial data+model algorithm”,achieved digital assets results of planning and design,provided full life cycle services for all types of customer infrastructure,promoted the safe,energy-saving,environmentfriendly and efficient development of shipbuilding and offshore engineering enterprises.At present,NDRI has undertaken O&M projects for a number of shipyards.

As digitalization is gradually moving into rapid development,NDRI will take digital technology as the breakthrough of a new round of transformation and upgrading,unswervingly take the way of digital economy and real economy integration development,enhance digital transformation value creativity and industrial chain driving effect,continuously assist survey and design and shipbuilding and offshore engineering industries to achieve a new round of transformation and upgrading.