Digital shipyard sounds great but what is it?
Author: Bernard Ash
So what does digital shipyard actually mean? Well if the name is anything to go by you would be safe to bet that it involves the latest evolution of cyber “digital” technologies. But what exactly are those technologies and how are they going to help build platforms that float (and sink)?
Digital Shipyard Sounds Great But What Is It?
A look at the emerging and evolving technologies making the digital shipyard possible.
There has been plenty of hype around “digital shipyard” recently especially after the announcement of Australia’s second mega shipbuilding program, SEA5000. Both BAE Systems and Naval Group will now look at gearing themselves up to leverage the power of the fourth industrial revolution, aka Industry 4.0.
Let’s first take a quick look at what Industry 4.0 is all about. The evolution of industry technology can loosely be categorised into four distinct groups:
Industry 1.0 - circa 1784, mechanisation and the first industrial use of steam power
Industry 2.0 - circa 1870, production in mass using assembly line and electricity
Industry 3.0 - circa 1969, introduction of computing, electronics and automation
Industry 4.0 - circa now, cyber physical systems and connected devices (IoT)
Of these four industrial categories it’s the latest evolution that underpins the group of capabilities that enables digital shipyard. So that brings us to the two significant capabilities within the Industry 4.0 category, “cyber physical systems” (CPS) and “The Internet of Things” (IoT).
CPS merges physical and software components together and makes the end product highly connected to the internet and its users. Robots, autonomous vehicles, smart grids and other such complex systems are examples of CPS.
IoT is the collection of connected smart devices that require no human to human or human to computer interaction. These devices can range from watches to fridges to phones to weather sensors. They can communicate with each other, exchange information and work collaboratively to complete tasks and feed information back to human operators.
There are a number of technologies that I would consider digital shipyard enablers. Some of these fit neatly under the Industry 4.0 umbrella whereas others are either recent or emerging technologies. And although there are numerous technologies that could be considered enablers for a digital shipyard, in this document I am going to concentrate on thirteen that have emerged or evolved considerably over the past 5 years.
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