Meyer Werft cruises into flexible engineering change management with IBM SOA solution

Meyer Werft cruises into flexible engineering change management with IBM SOA solution.

Overview

Challenge
To make proper decisions, a shipyard’s engineering and production departments needed consistent and integrated design information and production data

Solution
IBM Global Business Services analyzed the business situation and created a customized product lifecycle management (PLM) application to handle impacts of engineering changes on the manufacturing process more efficiently. The process-oriented application uses the Product Development Integration Framework (PDIF) based on the IBM SOA Foundation.

Key Benefits
Increased data consistency despite system boundaries; increased efficiency and transparency in the change process by means of order-oriented information provisioning and process-controlled order processing; substantial increase in productivity and quality in the shipyard’s manufacturing work scheduling process

“The IT systems environment has grown over time and now comprises many applications aligned to the unique requirements of individual areas.”
–Jörg Ackermann, IT Manager, Meyer Werft

“The ICEflow application provides staff with optimal support in preparing for and making decisions. These measures reduce throughput times, avoid errors and improve staff scheduling.”
–Hermann Lembeck, Head of Steel Manufacturing, Meyer Werft.

Based at Papenburg/Ems, Germany, the Meyer Werft shipyard was founded in 1795 and is now in its sixth generation of family ownership. In the past few decades Meyer Werft has gained an excellent international reputation, particularly in the construction of luxury cruise ships. To date, the shipyard has delivered more than 20 luxury liners of different sizes to clients all around the world. Its order book for luxury liners is filled until 2012. Managing partner Bernard Meyer concluded: “Meyer Werft has laid the foundation for future success.”
From an engineering and logistics viewpoint, the construction of specialized ships, mainly of passenger and cruise ships, is a highly demanding large-scale project. Essentially, the company is building floating cities. Computer-aided technologies for layout, planning, design and completion of the ships must be integrated into all parts of the shipyard. Shipbuilding in Papenburg is a state-of-the-art industry which combines all of the latest technologies such as satellite communication, multi-media and the most recent disposal technologies, all in one product.

However, the company’s existing product lifecycle management (PLM) process and system landscape were historically grown and lacked flexibility and scalability to meet current and future business demands. This situation did not provide a solid base for both engineering and business decisions.

“The IT systems environment has grown over time and now comprises many applications aligned to the unique requirements of individual areas,” says Jörg Ackermann, IT manager at Meyer Werft, describing the current situation. “Our focus for the future will be to provide better support of the business processes. The end users should be guided in their daily work and there should be improved process transparency.”

“Because of the required integration capability and the emerging requirements for process support, it was recognized early on that the new requirements could only be fulfilled as a result of a highly flexible IT architecture,” explains Marc Willems, IT architect at IBM.

These requirements prompted Meyer Weft to work jointly with IBM Global Business Services to develop new approaches for developing and integrating applications in a PLM context. The work team analyzed the existing environment and identified potential areas for improvement. Then the team evaluated technical solutions. In the framework of a Europe-wide project, INTERShip, which aims to improve the competitiveness of European shipyards, the initiative improved output by greater integration of applications and methodologies.

As a result, the team selected a service oriented architecture (SOA) for Meyer Werft because it promised to fulfill the requirements for flexibility and scalability for both processes as well as IT architecture.

The defined service-oriented PLM architecture and the services developed based on legacy applications will significantly simplify and transform the IT landscape and business processes for development and production.

A number of IBM products—IBM WebSphere Process Server, IBM WebSphere Application Server and IBM WebSphere MQ—emerged as the basis for technical implementation for the runtime environment. IBM WebSphere Integration Developer and IBM Rational Software Developer were used as development tools. ENOVIA VPLM was the standard product data management (PDM) software chosen to manage engineering data.

Small steps to success—think big, start small
“We chose a project for the first integrated change environment (ICEflow) implementation project that promised not only a direct business benefit but also a manageable implementation scope,” says Ralf Erfeling, ICEflow project manager at Meyer Werft. “It was important for our staff to be closely involved in the project from the start so that knowledge was transferred across all phases of the project.”

The project focused on improving Meyer Werft’s reaction to design engineering changes in steel production for shipbuilding. Existing procedures are very closely interlocked owing to the high level of automation. When dealing with a change, staff is often faced with the challenge of compiling relevant information on the production status from different systems and initiating the right steps to implement the change on the basis of this information.

“The ICEflow application provides staff with optimal support in preparing for and making decisions,” says Hermann Lembeck, head of steel manufacturing at Meyer Werft. “At the same time the application substantially improves the transparency of complex change. As early as the start-up phase, these measures reduce throughput times, avoid errors and improve staff scheduling.”

“In implementing SOA, it is important to use standardized interfaces and concepts,” says Yvonne Tepe, IT architect at Meyer Werft. “For this reason, we defined SOA-based Web services to link up the back-end systems. To develop IBM System i^™ applications, we used JTOpen [an open source version of the Java^™ IBM Toolbox] in addition to IBM Rational Software Developer. Because ICEflow uses a role-based concept for access rights and function control, we accessed Meyer Werft’s existing LDAP directory service.”

“Critical success factors for the acceptance of ICEflow were its user-friendly interface and a concept for flexible definition of workflows that were based on process templates, which would enable process changes at runtime,” says Ewald Luikenga, team manager for steel manufacturing.

Expertise set to escalate
The pilot phase showed that, with ICEflow, staff is far better supported in handling construction changes. Those responsible for the change can directly obtain an overview of its complexity. It is now possible to make decisions and initiate follow-up jobs by means of a compact, task-oriented representation of the necessary information. Change status and upcoming jobs can easily be retrieved at any time by all those involved. This not only improves job handling when preparing work, but also provides downstream departments with the information needed to adapt their planning.

Aided by the process-controlled application, the expertise required to use the new systems grew, making it possible to adapt the available capacities as needed and shorten throughput time due to parallel handling.

Previously, it was often necessary to retrieve information from different systems sequentially. Now, the information needed for any job can be consolidated, resulting in more efficiency and fewer errors. The integration of external development and production partners into a single set of corporate procedures also encouraged the development of innovative ways of cooperating.

“Using ICEflow, Meyer Werft developed a project approach and solution architecture that can be referenced for future projects,” says Peter Schel, IBM project manager. “The company can now take a stepwise approach in future projects, since the transformation to service orientation is best accomplished in controlled steps combined with a clear governance model.”

SOA to be basis of Meyer Werft IT strategy
By establishing its SOA-based PLM architecture, Meyer Werft was able to optimize time, quality and costs in the change process from development to production. Service orientation makes an individualized approach possible by means of flexible adaptation to the needs of specialist areas. Meyer Werft anticipates further rationalization in the development of new applications through targeted reuse, thus reducing IT costs as well. Summing up, SOA will contribute to a greater flexibility of business processes in development and production, resulting in a more competitive Meyer Werft.

Key Components
Software
IBM Rational® Software Developer
IBM WebSphere® Application Server
IBM WebSphere Integration Developer
IBM WebSphere MQ
IBM WebSphere Process Server
ENOVIA VPLM Services
Services
IBM Global Business Services

For more information
Please contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner.

Visit us at:
ibm.com/software/solutions/soa

For more information on Meyer Werft, visit:
www.meyerwerft.de