Production Planning Management in Shipbuilding Enterprises

Production Planning Management in Shipbuilding Enterprises

Whilst drawing on advanced management theories and successful practices from both home and abroad, shipbuilding enterprises must not merely imitate these management concepts; rather, they should optimise and innovate by adapting them to their own practical circumstances, and formulate practical and feasible plans to improve management and achieve their objectives, They must continuously advance the standardisation, normalisation and digitisation of production planning and management systems, thereby further elevating their own management and production standards, and in so doing promote the vigorous development of China’s shipbuilding industry.

1. The current state of production planning management in domestic and international shipbuilding enterprises

At present, leading shipbuilders worldwide place great emphasis on the research, development and application of digital shipbuilding technologies, having achieved comprehensive informatisation and automation in the field of planning management. Drawing on advanced international experience and theoretical knowledge, some of China’s leading shipbuilders have developed digital production planning management systems and implemented them in their day-to-day operations, achieving significant success. However, there remains a considerable gap between China’s planning management practices and those of leading international shipbuilders, which is primarily evident in two areas:

The level of digitalisation in shipbuilding has not progressed very far, and the degree of integration of information across various aspects—such as design, manufacturing and management—remains relatively low.

Secondly, the planning management system is not yet fully developed. In most cases, production plans are drawn up using a back-casting approach based on targets. This approach can easily lead to the neglect of issues such as the allocation of production resources and production optimisation. On the shop floor, where scheduling management typically takes the lead, the extent of changes to plans is relatively significant.

2. The Application of Digital Shipbuilding Technology

2.1 Implementation of a Digital Production Planning Management System

In the context of digital shipbuilding, the application of production planning management involves the establishment of a management platform centred on project management and organised around the production and construction schedule. This integrated, shared management platform is capable of comprehensively managing a variety of plans, including production plans, design plans, production preparation plans and material supply plans, enabling these plans to be interlinked and mutually dependent, thereby achieving integrated control covering pre-production, during-production and post-production feedback. This approach serves to enhance production efficiency, reduce production costs and shorten construction cycles, and this aspect constitutes a vital component of the CIMS integrated system. It is this highly efficient production planning management system that organically integrates the planning, formulation, execution, feedback and adjustment phases of the planning process, thereby ensuring the overall plan operates within an effective closed-loop management system. The implementation of a digital production planning management system by shipbuilding enterprises helps to synchronise management information relating to design, production, materials and logistics, thereby improving production planning methods and enhancing the scientific rigour and feasibility of production plans.

2.2 Strengthening the sharing of information between systems

Digital shipbuilding comprises three major systems: digital design, digital construction and digital management. Digital production planning management in shipbuilding falls under digital management and is a core component of it; it encompasses design management, production management and materials management. Currently, in China’s shipbuilding industry, the level of integration in product design is low; the same applies to the manufacturing process, and the level of integration of management information remains relatively low. The various main strands within the digital shipbuilding system have not yet been seamlessly integrated. From the preliminary design stage, through the detailed design phase, to the production design process, and extending to the logistics and supply chain, production planning, production control measures, and financial and cost calculations—information systems have been introduced or developed. Whilst these have indeed yielded certain benefits in localised applications, information barriers persist between the various systems. This leads to situations akin to “information silos”, where information is not shared between systems, consistency of information cannot be effectively guaranteed, and collaborative response times are slow; as a result, the full potential of digitalisation in shipbuilding is not being realised.

Standard operating procedures must be established, alongside a platform for sharing information throughout the entire process and an accurate quota system; furthermore, continuous improvement must be maintained over the long term. Through these measures, the company’s business processes can be continually innovated, consolidated and standardised, thereby resolving the aforementioned issues. Furthermore, the promotion of flat management structures is a key prerequisite for achieving digital shipbuilding, as it ensures the unimpeded flow of information between corporate management and production process management, facilitating the timely delivery and dissemination of information across all roles.

3. Improving the production planning management system

3.1 Establishing basic standards and implementing quantitative management

The basic standards for shipbuilding project planning and management—comprising labour-hour load standards, material load standards and shipyard equipment capacity standards—are quota standards derived from scientific statistical analysis based on actual production. They form the foundation for drawing up production plans, executing those plans, organising production and implementing process control, and reflect the actual production capacity of shipbuilding enterprises. Shipbuilding enterprises must prioritise the collection and statistical analysis of relevant production data, taking particular care to ensure the accuracy of data sources and the timely feedback of actual operational data. By utilising statistical analysis of actual data, they should formulate production management standards and quantitative targets suited to their specific circumstances, clearly define the cycle times for each process stage and the resource requirements throughout the production process, and implement quantitative management. It should be noted that time and quantity standards are closely linked to the specific products and the manufacturing environment; they must be continuously revised in line with product variations and technological advancements to ensure their validity.

3.2 Implementation of a Lean Shipbuilding Production Planning and Management System

Lean shipbuilding production planning management, which utilises the optimisation of production organisational structures and the implementation of pull-based planning to achieve the objectives of streamlining management, reducing costs, improving efficiency and ensuring orderly production, primarily encompasses JIT production, single-cell assembly lines, takt time production and pull-based planning systems, and must achieve the following three objectives:

(1) Plans shall be managed on a hierarchical basis, with lower-level plans subordinate to higher-level plans. Company plans, departmental plans and team plans are organised into distinct tiers, and consistency and coherence must be maintained between all levels.

Under a pull-based planning system, the subsequent production stage submits a demand plan to the preceding stage. This system ensures consistency between the plans of different departments; each department schedules its own production tasks on the condition that the company’s key milestones and the requirements of the subsequent production stage are met, thereby making the production plan more rational and orderly.

(3) Achieve single-piece flow and JIT production. In lean shipbuilding, planning management promotes a balanced, continuous production approach based on assembly line rhythms; that is, whilst ensuring a balanced production workload, it also meets the demands of subsequent processes, thereby achieving JIT production of a diverse range of vessel types under conditions of balance, continuity and efficiency.

To ensure that production preparations are sufficiently thorough, a comprehensive review and forecast of the status of these preparations must be carried out before the plan is issued; any conflicts that arise must be resolved immediately; Subsequently, based on the plan, the production volumes at each stage and the demand on production resources (including premises, equipment and labour) must be calculated; through detailed and careful resource allocation, a balance between production capacity and production targets must be maintained.

3.3 Breaking down engineering projects into appropriate components

To meet the requirements of modern shipbuilding practices—which emphasise the integration of hull, outfitting and painting, as well as the integration of design, production and management—it is essential, during the planning phase prior to production, to break down large, complex shipbuilding projects—which are difficult to predict and manage—into a series of manufacturing and installation tasks that are predictable, have clearly defined objectives, involve well-defined processes, are easy to implement and convenient to manage. Project decomposition helps to clarify the logical relationships between different systems and between various production stages, enabling a more rational scheduling of tasks during the actual construction process. This achieves the objectives of stabilising production targets, standardising production processes and simplifying production management; a more rational arrangement of tasks throughout the process enables the realisation of these objectives, simplify production management. At the same time, the planning work to be undertaken should cover all aspects and the entire process of shipbuilding, and should clearly define the scope, content and timing of plans at each level, as well as the interdependencies between plans drawn up by different departments, thereby ensuring that the entire planning process operates as a continuous flow, much like the production process itself.

3.4 Feedback on Shipbuilding Production

During the plan implementation process, the timeliness and accuracy of production feedback can significantly influence managers’ decision-making and have a major impact on whether production targets can be met as planned. Generally speaking, our focus is on information regarding actual production progress, as well as real-time data from the production preparation and operational phases that affects the smooth execution of the plan. During actual production, relevant information can be obtained through the effective management of work orders, daily labour reports, material preparation details and information on design and construction changes.

To achieve Just-in-Time (JIT) production and thereby gain control over on-site production processes, the concept of kanban management from the Toyota Production System can be drawn upon. As a key tool for the visual management of production planning, electronic kanban displays the actual real-time status of production plans at all levels of shipbuilding, facilitating the coordination and control of multi-project production scheduling; it is therefore worthy of wider adoption by domestic shipbuilding enterprises. Electronic kanban boards are categorised into planning kanban, quality kanban, cost kanban, component assembly and distribution kanban, supply kanban, transport kanban and site kanban, amongst others. They span the entire production planning process—from formulation and execution to feedback—and provide convenient, convenient, efficient and timely means of transmitting production planning information. Production planning should be scheduled and adjusted in accordance with the status of each type of kanban.