Ulstein gives Nauticus Yard Package thumbs up

Ulstein Verft AS started using Brix Project Manager in Nauticus Yard Package on a proof of concep basis this spring, and by the end of the summer the plan is to start running a full stability and testing phase.

“We’re very satisfied,” says Ulstein Verft’s manager planning department Runar Arne Toftesund. “We’re leaving behind a way of working that involved various Excel documents, emails and other forms of communication. Until now, we haven’t had a comprehensive strategy for this.

“In the beginning, we’ll be using it as a tool for project coordination, enabling us to control the whole shipbuilding phase. Later on we also intend to use it for planning the outfitting phase. But we need to make some improvements first,” he says.

For DNV Software, the customer satisfaction of a major player and innovator in the industry, such as Ulstein, is a key objective.

Expansion on the horizon
At first, Ulstein Verft AS will be the only user of the system within Ulstein Group. “Our goal is eventually to use it throughout the group,” says Toftesund. “It’s been very exciting to work with DNV Software. They’re always solution-oriented, and come up with good suggestions. They’ve been a great partner in discussions and debates. That’s important. And they’re very easy to work with.”

In addition to controlling projects at their own yard, the system is set up so that Ulstein Verft can keep track of outsourced projects such as hull construction, for example at yards in Poland.

The system allows an oversight not previously possible, looking at work to be done with related information in various ways, some of which were not previously easily manageable, for example by timeline, by zone of the ship, by discipline or SFI Group System, and various other ways. It is even possible to easily look at information concerning several ships simultaneously. Discipline plans, period plans and week plans are all extracted from the same common source of data.

Tailor-made for maritime
Previously systems such as this have existed for project planning, but until now, none have been so highly tailor-made for the maritime industry. “We’re fairly alone in the market now,” says DNV Software principal software architect Benedikte Harstad Kallåk.

Ulstein Verft AS in Ulsteinvik, Norway, is one of the world’s foremost suppliers of advanced vessels, including anchor hand - ling tug supply vessels, platform supply vessels and specialised and multifunctional vessels. The company has given its employees constant updates on the status of the Nauticus Yard Package roll-out through its newsletter. Employees are taking the challenge of working together to enter a more structured system that will make the entire shipbuilding process more efficient.

Nauticus Yard Package is fully integrated with Ulstein’s ERP system, Multiplus. It is important to be able to differentiate between accounting follow-up and project follow-up. As an example, remaining hours are attained from the project followup level, and automatically show up in the accounting table where they belong in the ERP system. DNV Software has worked with Multiplus in Sandefjord to achieve the integrated system.

Says Karsten Sævik, managing director, Ulstein Verft: “In order to have more consistent planning, it is vital that the progress is known at all times in a project. Ulstein Verft has implemented the HE principles behind Last Planner in its production planning system, whereby the planning windows are divided into three categories; the long, the middle, and the short perspective. To update plans consistently, the progress in each project must be real; updated and fresh.

“This is one reason why Ulstein Verft is about to implement Nauticus Yard Package to support better precision in reporting, thereby ensuring more consistent planning and better project execution. The information from this system can also be abstracted and presented at an aggregated level to see all projects across.”

Author: Kaia Means, MediaMix

日期: 18 June 2009