Creating the Industry-Wide Virtual Pipe Shop with STEP Software Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Topic No.: N05-039 Topic Title: Creating the Industry-Wide Virtual Pipe Shop with STEP Software Proposal No.: N051-039-0860 Firm: Industrial Planning Technology, Inc. 509 Twin Lakes Drive Titusville, Florida 32780 Contact: Patrick Rourke Phone: (423) 895-1062 Web Site: planning-technology.com Abstract: Subcontracting between shipyards can reduce total construction costs through workload leveling and maximum use of available automated equipment Shipyards are subcontracting piping work now, but only using paper drawings, which adds substantial time delay, costs, and sources of error. For Naval vessels, piping represents more than 25% of ship construction costs. ISO STEP standards exist which can completely define the data needed to manufacture piping. Some CAD systems can export these STEP files now. The problem is that there is no software available for pipe shops to receive and make use of this data. Industrial Planning Technology proposes to solve this system support technology problem with a collection of software tools that: (1) Simplify and speed up pipe fabrication subcontracting by generating complete pipe shop ordering, estimating, scheduling, and control data from STEP piping files. (2) Provide complete high fidelity simulation checking of all pipe shop operations. (3) Add STEP piping import capability to an existing commercial pipe shop direct numerical control system. (4) Provide standard piping data export from the ShipConstructorT CAD package. (5) Provide a generic C++ toolkit to reduce the costs of constructing software that uses the STEP piping data format. Benefits: Cost savings for US shipyards are estimated to be $3 million per year for new construction. Benefits of the proposed software solution include: (1) A CAD independent solution, which will enable workload sharing between yards. (2) Reduced pipe shop and design rework through high fidelity simulation of all pipe shop operations before they are performed, thus avoiding costly mistakes in the shop. (3) Faster turnaround for subcontracted work through the elimination of the time required for material ordering and labor estimating. (4) Improved pipe shop throughput from automated group technology. (5) Provide accurate shop floor statistics. (6) Improved shop floor management visibility. (7) Opening the door to a number of other innovative software solutions by dramatically reducing the cost for software developers to read and write STEP piping files. Industrial Planning Technology will market the results of this project to the shipbuilding and offshore platform industries and to independent pipe fabricators. The company has an in-place partnership arrangement with several large Asian and European shipyards. The first implementations will be at the U.S. yards that partner in the development of the technology. The U.S. competitive advantage in commercial shipbuilding will come from early adoption of the technology. When completed, the tools will be marketed worldwide. Targeted customers will then be extended to the plant design industry. Return