Advantages of advanced outfitting

1. Shorter Cycle Time: Since outfitting is done in parallel to hull fabrication,

the total cycle time, that is, from the date of contract signing to the delivery of
the ship, is reduced considerably. Accordingly, more number of ships can also be
built in a year, therefore giving leverage to the productivity of the shipyard.
2. Better Working Conditions: Since outfitting in block stage is carried out in
a workshop atmosphere, the efficiency of the work force will be more because of
the improved lighting and better ventilation. Modern shipyards also incorporate
efficient human factors to ensure optimum level of workshop productivity.
3. Reduced Interference in Design: Since advanced outfitting is done at a
time in a limited area (that is, in one block at a time), limited number of people
would be working, with less interference. For example, the personnel concerned
with piping is likely to meet with interference from personnel concerned with
ventilation. In case of advanced outfitting, these obstacles are done away with,
hence improving working conditions.
4. Open Sky Access for Erection of Equipment: In case of conventional
outfitting, the total hull (steel) structure is completed, and it is very difficult to
lower and then erect equipment and machinery into the lower decks, and this
process requires a lot of tools like chains, etc. But in case of advanced outfitting,
if the equipment are erected right in the block stage, and then the erection
process is well planned in such a way so that the equipment can be directly
erected with open sky access (that is, the deck above the equipment is erected
after the equipment is erected on its seat). This has been seen to reduce the
total erection time required to complete a shipbuilding project.
5. Down Hand Welding: One of the most inconvenient methods of welding in
shipyards, is that of overhead welding where the welding torch has to be held up
in an overhead position. Not only is this process risky, but also takes longer time.
If outfitting is done in the block stage, the blocks can be turned upside down by
180 degrees using the cranage facilities, so that majority of the welding can be
carried out in downhand position, which will reduce the building time drastically.
6. Fewer Crane Lifts: The machinery and equipment along with their seat and
connected piping can be unitised into modules and these modules can be
erected as a single unit. Therefore, instead of separate crane lifts for equipment,
seating, and piping, the entire unit is erected by only one crane lift.
7. Reduced Service Requirements and Overheads: This is a very interesting
point wherein you will see how small changes in production methods impact the
overall economy of the shipyard in different ways. Every shipyard has overheads
expenses behind the manpower that it employees. Now, imagine a case where a
shipyard builds only one ship per year. The expenses on overheads will remain
same, irrespective of the number of ships built per year, because the man power
is employed throughout the year. But in case of advanced outfitting, since the
cycle time is reduced, the shipyard not only builds more ships at a given time,

but also gains in the sense, that along with the increase in productivity, the
overhead expenses remain same for a year, thereby saving overhead costs.
8. Less Requirements for Staging: For erection of ventilation trunks, electric
cables, piping spools, etc. below deck staging is to be arranged in conventional
ship building process in order to provide easy reach for the people working in the
area. However, in the case of advanced outfitting, since outfitting is done at the
block stage itself, the block can be turned upside down or to any convenient
position so that the outfit components can be easily erected without the
requirement of staging arrangements.
9. Better Cash Flow for the Yard: Since the overall cycle time is reduced by
adopting advanced outfitting, more number of ships can be built in a year, and
accordingly, there will be a strengthened cash inflow from the owners and
borrowing costs will also be substantially reduced.
10. Low Inventory Costs: In case of conventional ship building, the machinery
and other outfit items are kept in the yard for a longer duration, and hence there
will be more inventory costs and hence a lock up of capital. By adopting the
strategy of advanced outfitting, since cycle time is reduced, the inventory costs
are also brought down by noticeable amounts.
11. Availability of Guarantee Period for the Equipment: Shipyards
normally provide one year guarantee for the ship delivered to the owners, and
any defects that occur within the guarantee period will be rectified by the
shipyards costs. Generally, equipment manufacturers provide a guarantee
period for their equipment for one year after delivery of the ship to the owners
(or in some cases, eighteen to twenty four months from the date of despatch
from the manufacturers). If the delivery of the ship takes a longer time, then the
guarantee period provided by the manufacturers will not be available to the yard
after the delivery, and hence the guarantee costs are to be borne by the yard
itself. By adopting advanced outfitting, the duration of construction is reduced,
and hence the guarantee for the equipment will be available to the yard, and any
defects noticed after delivery will be rectified by the manufacturers at their
costs.
12. Even Distribution of Man Hours during Cycle: In case of conventional
ship building, the steel shops will be working for a considerably higher fraction of
the cycle time, and majority of the man hours will be consumed by the steel
workforce. Therefore, the outfit shops (plumbing, electrical, engineering,
machinery, and sheet metal, etc) shall be working below their normal capacity
during hull fabrication. After the hull is completed and launched, the outfit
departments will have maximum work, and steel shops are not loaded with full
capacity of work.
This imbalance is not observed in case of advanced outfitting, where hull
fabrication and equipment erection are done parallelly, therefore ensuring even
distribution of man hours during construction cycle.

13. Modularisation of Accommodation Areas: In conventional shipbuilding,

the accommodation steel blocks are erected after launching, and after the heavy
machinery are erected. Outfitting is done at a much later stage.
In modern ship building technology, these accommodation blocks are separately
made and outfitted at a specialized area in the yard and this block (as one unit)
including associated outfits, is erected onto the ship. The accommodation block
can be completed as a parallel work along with the hull structure erection and
machinery erection.
14. Separate Facilities for Fabricating or Outfitting or Stern Blocks: In
modern shipbuilding yards, separate berths are provided exclusively for
fabricating and outfitting stern blocks, and for a series of daughter ships, these
stern blocks and engine room blocks are made parallelly in order to reduce total
cycle time.
15. Effective and optimum Utilisation of Building Docks and Berths: Once
a ship is being constructed on a berth or a building dock, the next ship cannot be
constructed on the same berth until the first ship has been launched. Hence, to
construct more number of ships in a year, the time of occupation of a ship on a
particular berth should be optimised to minimum.
In case of advanced outfitting, wherein outfitting is done in block stage in shops,
there will be very less time of occupation of the berths or docks and more
number of vessels can be built by the yard in a year.
Now that we have discussed all the aspects of advanced outfitting, starting from
the fundamental concepts to the facilities required by yards, and then the
advantages of the methods, you now have an aerial view of the entire
technology of advanced outfitting.
In recent days, shipyards are yet looking forward to more efficient methods, not
only to reduce the cycle times, but also to improve the efficiency of each worker
in a shipyard, and hence add leverage on the overall productivity. Advanced
outfitting is not only an important concept to be known by shipbuilders, but also
to Naval Architects, as this method has also had an effect on the production
design process followed by design offices in almost all modern day shipyards.
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How The Power Requirement Of A Ship Is Estimated?

One of the most important stages of a ship design process is the estimation,
calculation and optimisation of a ships power requirements. Why? Because
the power of a ship is a deciding factor for many other aspects of the industryboth the market and the environment.
A ship with more power requirements will automatically require larger amounts
of fuel for each run of voyage, resulting in a hike in fuel expenses for the owner.
Also, according to the recent trends, the overall efficiency of a ship is quantified

by Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI). The lesser the EEDI of a ship, more is
the efficiency of the ship from an environmental and societal point of view. As
the EEDI of a ship being proportional to the power required, it is always preferred
by the designers to reduce the power requirements of a ship by every way
possible. It reduces the EEDI, and in turn, brings down the carbon footprint of the
ship.
Before we go into the core topic of this article, let me tell you what this article is
about. In this article, we will first look at the ways of determining the power
requirements for Marine Diesel Engines and Diesel Electric Propulsion
Systems (note that the methods of estimating the power ratings for both the
systems are quite different from each other). However different they may be, the
first step is always the same, regardless of the type of propulsion system that is
to be used by the ship, as discussed below.
The First Step: Calculate the Resistance of a Ship
In order to calculate the resistance of a ship, the first step is to conduct a towing
tank test. In case of new hullforms, a towing tank test is preferred. However, if
the hullform of the ship in design has already been tested in a tank, it is
preferred to just follow the scaling method (Which we shall discuss soon).
In a towing tank test, the resistance of the model scale is obtained in the
computer of the carriage. This is then scaled up to the ships scale by using a set
of steps recommended by International Towing Tank Conference (ITTC).
The towing tank however gives on the bare hull resistance of the ship. Air
Resistance, Resistance due to Appendages and a Correlation Allowance are
added to obtain the Total Resistance of the ship. This total resistance when
multiplied with the ships velocity gives the Effective Power of the ship (P E).
An Interesting Tip: If you now rate the ships engines to the obtained effective
power, the ship should move at the design speed. Right? But if you actually did,
the ship would only be able to operate at a speed lower than this. We will discuss
the reason as we proceed.
The Second Step: Decide on the Type of Ship Propulsion
This is one of the most deciding steps of the entire process. Selection of the
wrong type of propulsion system may result in an economic catastrophe for the
ship in future. Years of experience and research has now provided us with a clear
idea as to what kind of propulsion should be preferred on different kind of ships.
Diesel-Mechanical Propulsion is preferred in most cargo ships which require low
speed operations and lower operating costs (operation costs for Heavy Fuel Oil
used in Marine Diesel Engines is lesser than operating costs of Diesel Electric
Propulsion Systems). In the recent times, slow steaming has become an efficient
method to counter the effects of the maritime recession, and diesel propulsion is
hence preferred in most cargo ships (bulk carriers, oil tankers, container ships).
Diesel Electric Propulsion is preferred in ships which require more electric power
(for example cruise ships require more electric power to run its facilities, drill
ships that require dynamic positioning systems for most of the time of operation,
etc.) and ships that require undisturbed operations with varied torque (for
example, tugs). This is one of the most notable advantage of diesel electric

propulsion. Where diesel mechanical propulsion systems do not offer high

efficiencies at all torques, diesel electric propulsion systems can operate at high
efficiencies at almost all torque variations.

The Third Step: Estimate the Engine or Diesel Alternator Ratings

For Diesel Mechanical Propulsion:
Remember the question we had raised in the tip above? Why would the ship not
operate at design speed if we rated the engines at the effective power?
-> The resistance calculated from the towing tank tests is only the bare hull
resistance, that is, the effect of the propeller is not considered in the above.
Whereas, when a propeller operates behind the ship, there is the following we
must consider here:
Resistance of the ship increases from the value calculated in bare hull condition.
The propeller must operate at a torque that is sufficient to overcome this
augment in resistance and also enable the ship to overcome its bare hull
resistance.
Hence, due to the losses in the propeller, the power delivered to the propeller
(PD) at the shaft output should be more than the effective power (P E). The ratio of
the effective power to the delivered power is called Quasi Propulsive Coefficient
(QPC). QPC usually ranges from 0.55 to 0.65.
-> The power at the engine output (i.e. shaft input) is not fully obtained at the
shaft output. This is because of the frictional and heat losses that occur along the
length of the shaft. These are termed as shaft losses. Shaft losses are usually
taken as 2 percent.
-> In case of smaller ships where high rpm engines are generally used, reduction
gearboxes are used to reduce the shaft rpm, or operated at various RPMs. The
losses induced by the gearbox are classified under gearbox losses. Gearbox
losses range from 4 to 5 percent.
-> The resistance estimated during the design phase does not consider the
effect of waves. Due to the action of waves, the actual resistance on a ship is
higher than that in calm water conditions. Hence, a margin of 15 percent is
considered as sea margin, and the engine power is rated so that it overcomes
the sea margin.
-> It is always desirable to keep specific fuel oil consumption as low as possible.
For marine diesel engines, the Specific Fuel Oil Consumption (SFOC) is minimum
when the RPM of the engine is corresponding to 85% of maximum continuous
rating (MCR). Which means, that the design speed should be attained, not at the

rated MCR but at 85% of the MCR. So to obtain the MCR, the corresponding
factor of 0.85 is considered.
The following table shows a calculation that is used to obtain the rated engine
power from the effective power of twin-engine ship using the above factors:

Effective power of twin-engine ship

For Diesel-Electric Propulsion:
I will discuss the basic components of a diesel electric propulsion just to an
extent that makes is possible for a reader at a preliminary stage to understand
what we will be discussing on the estimation of power rating of a diesel electric
propulsion system.
The basic components of a diesel electric propulsion system are:
Diesel Generators, Transformers, Electric Motors and Loads. Now, the loads on
the system may be a electric motor driven propulsion pod, or a bow thruster, or
any component of hotel load (lighting, HVAC, etc.)

Figure 2: Basic Components of a Diesel-Electric Propulsion System

In this case, the electric propulsion motors, propellers and other loads together
form the load of the entire power plant. But it is to be considered that not all
loads will be in operation in every condition. For example,
In harbour, the propulsion loads will be absent, whereas the hotel loads will be
present.

In case of Dynamic Positioning Operations, both hotel loads and propulsion units
will be in operation. So in this case, the load on the diesel generators will be
maximum.
So, we will basically need to calculate the total power requirement before
deciding upon the number of diesel generators required to meet all the
conditions. Once the total power is decided, the number of diesel generators will
be decided upon based on certain principles that we shall discuss later on.
First, in order to calculate the total power requirement, designers prepare a Load
Chart which lists out all the electrical loads on the ship. And the load chart is
prepared, taking into consideration three operating conditions in general:
Sailing, Harbour and Maneuvering.
In the load chart, the power requirements of each electrical load on the ship is
calculated by multiplying the Maximum Rated Power of the component with two
factors:
Load Factor: It is the ratio of the operating power to the maximum power rating
of the component.
Utility Factor: It is a factor which determines the extent of operation of the
particular component in a particular condition.
For example, for a steering gear equipment:

Utility factor for a steering gear equipment

Note that the utility factor is 0.8 in Sailing and Maneuvering Conditions,
but 0 in Harbourcondition, since in harbour condition the steering gear is not
used. So the contribution of the steering gear equipment to the total power
requirement in Sailing Condition will be zero.
In the similar manner as illustrated above, the load chart is prepared for all the
electrical components on the ship. A sample of the same would look like the
following:

Figure 3: Electrical Load Chart

Once the load chart is prepared, the total power requirement for each of the
three conditions (Sailing, Harbour and Maneuvering) are calculated by adding up
the power requirement for each component for each of the conditions (follow
figure 4). Once this is clear, we will now refer to Figure 4 to understand how the
total number of diesel generators is decided.

Figure 4: Determination of Total no. of generators

The two rules to be followed in deciding upon the number of generators are:

If more than one generator is operating in any condition, both the

generators should share equal amount of load.

The load on each generator in any of the three conditions should

not be more than 70 percent of the rated power of the
generator. (Or, the maximum rating of each generator is decided based
upon the condition that seventy percent of the maximum rating is more
than the load on the generator in any of the three conditions)

One additional generator should always be included, which is for

standby purpose.

Note that this standby generator will not share the load in any of the
above three conditions unless any of the working generators are out of
order. So the standby generator is not included in the above calculation,
but it is usually of the same rating as of the other generators.
This process is iterated by varying power ratings and varying number of
generators until the above first two conditions are satisfied, and a situation
similar to the one in Figure 4 is obtained. It is advised that you analyse the first
two conditions using the above figure to understand it in first hand.
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