Overview

Project Number: S2802

Project Title: Advanced Diagram Development and Management

Period of Performance: MAY19 – JAN23

Objective

The DDG 51 Class destroyer was initiated in the late 1970s, with the first DDG 51 procured in 1985. It is one of the longest-running shipbuilding programs in Navy history, and the DDG 51 Class, in terms of number of hulls, is one of the Navy’s largest classes of ships since World War II. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW) sees cost-savings potential in how it designs, plans and installs nearly 320 miles of electrical cable on each DDG 51 through the development of “intelligent” 2D electrical drawing products, where drawing components are attributed and include engineering, design and planning details within the component’s description.

Currently, electrical diagram development and maintenance for DDG 51 are mostly done manually through the use of AutoCAD 2D drawings. The 2D diagrams are not linked to the 3D designs, which often create misalignments and prolong maintenance activities. This Naval Shipbuilding and Advanced Manufacturing (NSAM) Center project will introduce more advanced diagram development and management through the use of “intelligent” 2D electrical drawing products. The objective of the Advanced Diagram Development and Management project is to create toolsets that can consistently process data and present data in the formats required – in this case, functional diagrams. Using tools to accomplish this goal, BIW will be able to create diagrams in a consistent manner with data that is verified, directly managed and consistently used by other users throughout the organization, and it will become routine when identifying what the data represents, its relevance to products that are delivered and its impact to diagrams and other downstream products.

Benefits/Payoff

This project will reduce labor hours to create / maintain diagrams, reduce / eliminate rework attributed to errors and improve first-time quality of diagrams. BIW estimates the use of “intelligent” 2D drawings can save as much as $924.0K per DDG 51 hull. This creates five-year savings of $5.5M and a return on investment of 1.5:1.

Implementation

BIW will deploy the solution at its Bath, ME, facility during FY2023. Data migration, tool deployment and interface deployment will be done throughout the organization. Training will be conducted for users, and tools will start to generate the functional products required for delivery.

*Prepared under ONR Contract N00014-19-D-7001 as part of the Navy ManTech Program.

*DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release: distribution unlimited. DCN# 0543-545-23