An integrated system for managing ship repair operations

The global competition pressure drives manufacturing companies to be lean, virtual and global. However many manufacturing companies, such as ship repair yards, are handicapped in marketing competition owing to their complex and uncertain manufacturing environment, resulting in problems related to scheduling, control and capacity planning of their manufacturing operations. The approach discussed in this paper is designed to support the management of a ship repair yard by integrating in an open and flexible system a number of critical business functions with production planning, scheduling and control. This approach is implemented in a software system fully developed in Java and designed by using UML. The proposed software system operates at a ship repair yard in a pilot mode, concurrently with the existing working practice. With the use of the new concept for production planning activities, the managers of the shipyard are assisted to produce overall schedules in a more efficient way in order to allocate work in the various departments.