DFP Analysis of Robotically Assembled Interim Productsin Shipbuilding

The shipbuilding industry belongs to one of the most complex manufacturing industries in the world. During the last couple of decades efforts were made to achieve optimal production, with minimal waste and maximum results of the final product – a ship. In order to allow for this type of manufacturing approach it is necessary to modernize the production processes of a shipyard on a regular basis by following world trends in shipbuilding. Investments in the advancements of assembly lines is a key and primary move towards achieving savings. In the industrial world there is a constant goal of automation and robotization of assembly processes since the degree of achieving this goal is still not satisfactory. Based on this reason the facilities of most shipyards are still only partially automated and roboticized, which means that there is still a large percentage of manual work. This paper analyzes the fallbacks of the assembly processes of a specific shipyard with the aim of providing insight into the realistic possibilities of optimizing the assembly phase of shipbuilding.