21 – 23 jan. 2009 The world’s leading shipbuilding fair Phone: +90 (216) 5180397 · ebru@goca-exhibitions.com Phone: +49 40 3569-2148 · diana.haagen@hamburg-messe.de This Fair is organized with the permission of TOBB (The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey) in accordance with the Law No.5174TOBB is coming to Istanbul www.smm-istanbul.com SMM_AZ_Istanbul_293x392.indd 1 21.11.2008 10:27:43 Uhr
You can use electronic documentation systems as a basis <strong>for</strong> computer based training modules, said Sylvia Schwab, senior systems engineer with CORENA Norway Alessia Vergine, team leader of basic and applied research with the marine division of Italian class society RINA, said she believes that <strong>Ship</strong>dex will help streamline the flow of in<strong>for</strong>mation between shipyards and class, leading to better data management, improved transparency and traceability. It can help put together checklists <strong>for</strong> surveyors, and update systems about components' status, she said. "<strong>Ship</strong>dex will allow <strong>for</strong> a better management of class in<strong>for</strong>mation and the classification process in general," she told us. "It will help speed up data management. It will also help facilitate application of condition monitoring techniques." <strong>Ship</strong>dex is a standard way of managing technical in<strong>for</strong>mation <strong>for</strong> ships (such as manuals, drawings and spare parts lists), so it can be communicated between suppliers, shipyards, shipping companies and ships electronically, rather than on paper, as it is today. This means that shipboard computer systems can automatically serve up the right piece of technical in<strong>for</strong>mation at the right time, completely accurately, with no searching <strong>for</strong> paper. It means that shipboard maintenance systems and purchasing systems always have the right data in them, and that companies no longer have to deal with the inconvenience and cost of storing paper documents. It gets much easier to link up the maintenance software, creating work orders, to the documentation - so (<strong>for</strong> example) a vessel engineer can get a list of today's maintenance tasks, and all the relevant documentation about how to do them, in his inbox. <strong><strong>Ship</strong>ping</strong> companies will receive all of their manuals from their suppliers and sub suppliers in a standard <strong>for</strong>mat and structure. This should lead to maintenance on Computer based training Electronic documentation could be used as a basis <strong>for</strong> creating computer based training, something the aviation industry is already doing with S1000D. "With electronic technical in<strong>for</strong>mation, you can easily build computer based training to send everywhere - electronic training courses you can supply to your crew managers," said Grimaldi's Mr Coletta. Sylvia Schwab, senior systems engineer with CORENA Norway, a company which provides S1000D documentation systems <strong>for</strong> the aerospace industry, explained that the aviation industry needs to immediately update both its manuals and training systems after there are any changes to the aeroplane equipment. A system <strong>for</strong> web based learning has been developed called 'Shareable Content Object Reference Model' (SCORM), published by an organisation run by the US Department of Defence, which can access data from S1000D. Improved purchasing One important benefit of <strong>Ship</strong>dex is that it will help shipping companies keep the right inventory of spare parts onboard and always purchase the right spare parts at the right time, because their databases should be much improved. Poor data quality is proving quite an impediment to electronic commerce between shipping companies and suppliers, said Alfa Laval's Mats Ottosson. <strong><strong>Ship</strong>ping</strong> companies might have good parts databases when they have just bought new equipment, but the problems arise further along the equipment's lifecy- About <strong>Ship</strong>dex ships getting much easier - leading to ships being better maintained and lasting longer, something which will make a big impact on every shipowners' bottom line over the long term. It will also lead to improved purchasing, if companies always order the right parts because their systems have the right data in them, and shipping companies will be able to use <strong>Ship</strong>dex to put together better reports to send authorities and class societies. In order to use <strong>Ship</strong>dex, you have to join the <strong>Ship</strong>dex organisation; the fees <strong>for</strong> this are Eur 2,500 <strong>for</strong> initial registration and Eur 500 <strong>for</strong> annual membership renewal. Anyone can join and use <strong>Ship</strong>dex, including shipping companies, equipment suppliers and software companies. Although the maritime software company SpecTec played a big role in the establishment of <strong>Ship</strong>dex, users are not committed in any way to using SpecTec software; they can use any software which is compatible with the protocol, the details of which are openly available to <strong>Ship</strong>dex members. <strong>Ship</strong>dex is an XML standard - that is, it is a way of labelling the chunks of cle, when new parts are introduced and older ones retired, because it is very hard <strong>for</strong> a manufacturer to ask shipowners to update their databases. <strong>Ship</strong>dex could facilitate data communication between shipping companies and their suppliers, to keep their databases up to date <strong>for</strong> new equipment. "As a manufacturer we can put quality in when we start, but it is a joint challenge to maintain it throughout the life cycle," said Mr Ottosson. There was a discussion about data quality at the recent International Maritime Purchasing Association (IMPA) conference in London, he added. "E-commerce companies said, we can help maintain quality. Can they? I'm not sure, not without involving both the buyer and the supplier." text, data and drawings which are included in manuals and catalogues, so they can be automatically moved between different computer systems fluidly. So (<strong>for</strong> example) a shipyard's document management system can automatically provide the data <strong>for</strong> a new vessel including all of the equipment on it; the data can be imported into the shipping company's documentation system, and linked to its maintenance and purchasing system. Then you end up with a system which can (<strong>for</strong> example) provide work orders (instructions of what maintenance tasks need to be done today), alongside the instructions of how to do the maintenance. It is important to stress that <strong>Ship</strong>dex is not about PDF documents; PDF documents are just an electronic version of paper. To illustrate the difference, imagine trying to set up a database of spare parts <strong>for</strong> your purchasing system. If the list was provided to you on paper or a PDF document, you would need to type it into your purchasing system line by line. If the list was provided as <strong>Ship</strong>dex data, you could import it automatically. <strong>Digital</strong> <strong>Ship</strong> December 2008 page 25 There was plenty to discuss in the coffee break <strong>Ship</strong>dex ownership There have still been a few gripes about the way ownership and copyright of <strong>Ship</strong>dex has been set up, with copyright over the protocol currently retained by the two founding companies, Grimaldi Group and Intership, and a steering committee including all the founder members (Grimaldi, Intership, Alfa Laval, MacGREGOR, MAN Diesel, SpecTec and Yanmar). Mr Coletta of Grimaldi Naples argues that this process has been put in place to help manage the development of the protocol - several similar initiatives have foundered because there were too many members which made it too hard to make decisions. Mr Coletta said he would be happy to pass copyright onto another independent organisation in future which could manage it. The members have agreed that they will open up the protocol maintenance group to other companies from next summer onwards, although new members will be voted in by the existing members, and may be limited to one company in each sector (eg one software company, one classification society, one shipyard and so on). All members of <strong>Ship</strong>dex can apply <strong>for</strong> any changes they want to see to be made to the protocol, which will be discussed by the maintenance group. <strong>Ship</strong>dex structure <strong>Ship</strong>dex is a kind of language which describes the equipment, tagged so that different computer systems can understand what the different pieces of text and data mean. <strong>Ship</strong>dex data can include text about how to operate the equipment; in<strong>for</strong>mation about how to do maintenance; troubleshooting in<strong>for</strong>mation (solving problems); in<strong>for</strong>mation about spare parts (with illustration); and in<strong>for</strong>mation about how to provide changes to documentation, explained SpecTec's Marco Vatteroni, author of <strong>Ship</strong>dex. Each spare part needs to have a unique number, so it can be used <strong>for</strong> computer systems <strong>for</strong> managing spare part inventory and ordering new spare parts. Optional data includes the equipment serial numbers; a recommended quantity to be included onboard; and whether or not they are subject to Marpol Annex VI (IMO air pollution regulations). <strong>Digital</strong> <strong>Ship</strong> DS
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