Knowledge exchange

The key feature of the ships built today is the safety of their construction. In addition to protecting human life, the capability of operating in difficult conditions at sea and protecting natural environment is crucial. Furthermore, minimizing the risk of accidents and the costs of potential repairs, and thus high compensation payments, is also one of the key objectives of the shipbuilding process. The whole project must also be cost-effective and comply with agreed implementation schedules. The answer to these challenges is to optimize ship design in terms of quantity and weight of construction materials used. To this end, design offices use dedicated, specialized software to increase both precision and efficiency of strength calculations, as well as to comply with customer requirements and classification regulations and ensure the safety of the structure, while taking into account also the final cost of building the vessel.

Diversified practices in the area of contracting ship design services affect the efficiency of project implementation, as discussed in the first part of the article. As we’ve recommended, the most beneficial solution is to divide contracting into two parts – first tender including concept and contract design, and second procedure covering basic design and workshop documentation of the ship. Following article will introduce the complexity of the design process and benefits of implementing abovementioned division of contracting for all interested parties, i.e. the buyer, the design office and the shipyard.

Ship design is a complex process, requiring meticulous planning, risk management and the ability to make compromises between the buyer/owner, the design office and the shipyard/builder. Design services contracting process is based mostly on tendering procedures, but the practices vary both in terms of the nature of the owner (public or commercial) and the location (domestic projects or foreign tenders). The following article treats the differences in contracting ship design, affecting further stages of the project, based on our 20 years of experience in providing services for ship owners in different parts of the globe.