New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Navy_Pete]

Irving strikes again I wonder? This is the 2nd Hero Class completely out of service, although the first one was due to sabotage and not related to the build. Also surprised they have no soft patch designed in.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova...q3LMO5gum0K85VjVgHuZm3FMOd4bd-NbFcXNCrh-gznU8

Is the soft patch they have just not big enough and in the right spot for a direct removal? Usually they are generally in a bad spot to open it up and get a crane directly onto, or you have to remove some of the various things that are all bolted on top so the block can ride the rail and be pivoted out the soft patch. Even broken down with the ones where you can split the block it's a big job.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Haven't been aboard them, but from the pictures I have seen, it's a very cramped design with some poor choices like hatches that can't open fully to allow stretchers through. So I expect that things like engine room access was an after thought.
https://blog.halifaxshippingnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Untitled.gif

 

[Underway]

@CBH99 not to rain on your parade but wait until the ships that Vancouver Ship Yards (not to be confused with Seaspan which is the parent company) have built are floating around. You'll then get the rage from the operator/maintainers on things they don't like or don't work.

Case in point the CCG made a video of the OFSV where they are trying to recover the rescue boat while it's rapidly filling up with hot water from the cooling system. Vancouver Ship Yards put a discharge above the rescue boat recovery position. I don't know how that's being rectified but moving a discharge is not cheap or easy after the ship is built. To me, that's a mistake from a noob shipyard and a noob Project Management Office in Ottawa. Reputations are built and earned over time. We will see where VSY ends up.

Irving has a history so they've had a chance to build up the animosity over the years, and almost all of that animosity is from the refit side of their operation. It seems a bit unfair to paint the shipbuilding side with the same brush until they get going. And AOPS will be very different from CSC. CSC has Lockheed and BAE as the design authority which is very different than with AOPS where Irving was the design authority. BAE knows how to build ships and Lockheed though expensive know their stuff as well. Irving will have to execute on what is by and large the Lockheed/BAE plan.

 

[Czech_pivo]

CSC has Lockheed and BAE as the design authority which is very different than with AOPS where Irving was the design authority. BAE knows how to build ships and Lockheed though expensive know their stuff as well. Irving will have to execute on what is by and large the Lockheed/BAE plan.

I just hope that it’s not the case of having a car designed/engineered by Mercedes but built by Chrysler, to use as an example.

 

[RangerRay]

I just hope that it’s not the case of having a car designed/engineered by Mercedes but built by Chrysler, to use as an example.

Or having a light off-road vehicle designed/engineered by Volkswagen but built by Bombardier...?

 

[Underway]

I just hope that it’s not the case of having a car designed/engineered by Mercedes but built by Chrysler, to use as an example.

The first ship will be bad. The third ship will be good. Ship six will be hitting all the marks.

HMCS Halifax was in terrible shape. HMCS Montreal (ship 6) was basically ready to go right out of the gate.

HMCS Harry DeWolf was in bad shape. The next AOPS are already in significantly better shape to start with.

Remember that when Protecteur hits the water and when CSC 1 does as well. They will need rework fixes to be ready for the fleet.

 

[Czech_pivo]

The first ship will be bad. The third ship will be good. Ship six will be hitting all the marks.

HMCS Halifax was in terrible shape. HMCS Montreal (ship 6) was basically ready to go right out of the gate.

HMCS Harry DeWolf was in bad shape. The next AOPS are already in significantly better shape to start with.

Remember that when Protecteur hits the water and when CSC 1 does as well. They will need rework fixes to be ready for the fleet.

Makes total sense. I remember my days working for Chrysler as a University student back at Plant 3 making the mini-van. After the 2 week shut-down, retooling for the new model year in mid-July it certainly took a number of weeks before quality improved and everyone got into a new routine with the new process.

 

[Spencer100]

Makes total sense. I remember my days working for Chrysler as a University student back at Plant 3 making the mini-van. After the 2 week shut-down, retooling for the new model year in mid-July it certainly took a number of weeks before quality improved and everyone got into a new routine with the new process.

You're old calling it Plant 3........LOL

 

[Spencer100]

I just hope that it’s not the case of having a car designed/engineered by Mercedes but built by Chrysler, to use as an example.

In that case it would be OK. I would take that car. (and in the 90's you could lol) Being in the automotive business and working with both companies believe it or not MB's manufacturing is not all its cracked up to be.

 

[Czech_pivo]

You're old calling it Plant 3........LOL

Lol - I don't think that I'm that old. My Dad spent 42yrs with Chrysler in the accounting dept. across the street from Plant 3, in the Admin Building.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Couple of pictures I took today of one of the 1100's getting shafts redone, she getting new engines next year. CCG would be happy with a updated version of these buoytender/icebreakers.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

hmm won't let me add the other image. when I was down at Vancouver Dry Dock today they had two large fishing vessels, 3 large barges and the icebreaker up for repairs, that is only one part of the whole Vancouver Shipyards.

 

[Navy_Pete]

In that case it would be OK. I would take that car. (and in the 90's you could lol) Being in the automotive business and working with both companies believe it or not MB's manufacturing is not all its cracked up to be.

Years ago I was at the car show in Toronto with my dad and there was a Maserati with part of the hood cut away to show off the engine. He looked at it and then started loudly critiquing the weld quality and finish (there was a lot of spatter and similar) and how that wouldn't have passed inspection where he worked. The salesman quickly tried to shuffle him off to the side, it was pretty funny at the time.

Nuts though that you would pay that much for a car and not get good quality work. Since then realized how much people will pay for a name and the perception of quality, regardless of the actual product.

 

[blacktriangle]

Years ago I was at the car show in Toronto with my dad and there was a Maserati with part of the hood cut away to show off the engine. He looked at it and then started loudly critiquing the weld quality and finish (there was a lot of spatter and similar) and how that wouldn't have passed inspection where he worked. The salesman quickly tried to shuffle him off to the side, it was pretty funny at the time.

Nuts though that you would pay that much for a car and not get good quality work. Since then realized how much people will pay for a name and the perception of quality, regardless of the actual product.

Tesla has major QC issues and yet still manages to sell loads of cars every month. I guess they are still a young company, and there will be growing pains...but still. You're right that people seem willing to overlook reality in the name of brand recognition.

What's that method called? Six Sigma? Isn't that supposed to be applied in manufacturing to seriously reduce defects?

In what way was the first AOPS "bad"? Was it design issues not being realized until production, or just poor workmanship due to inexperience (or because someone knew they could get away with it) ?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

VDC was showing me their new pipe welding robot, does beautiful work and every weld is video recorded and temperature/type of rod/wire used is logged as well. If there is a failure they can go back and pull up that weld. Also cuts the time to do the pipe by 1/3rd over manual welding.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

VDC was showing me their new pipe welding robot, does beautiful work and every weld is video recorded and temperature/type of rod/wire used is logged as well. If there is a failure they can go back and pull up that weld. Also cuts the time to do the pipe by 1/3rd over manual welding.

That is seriously cool. What a marvellous modern age we live in.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Tesla has major QC issues and yet still manages to sell loads of cars every month. I guess they are still a young company, and there will be growing pains...but still. You're right that people seem willing to overlook reality in the name of brand recognition.

What's that method called? Six Sigma? Isn't that supposed to be applied in manufacturing to seriously reduce defects?

In what way was the first AOPS "bad"? Was it design issues not being realized until production, or just poor workmanship due to inexperience (or because someone knew they could get away with it) ?

Was actually a commentary on Mercedes Benz; sidetracked from the main topic and wasn't speaking directly to anything on AOPS.

For the welding defects the inspection is normal quality control; it starts by a visual inspection, but then there are also all kinds of non-destructive testing options. Part of the modernization process is building up a big database of the weld effects on different types of steel and different welds with the automatic machines. Aside from the quality they also track stuff like weld distortion so they can eliminate/minimize corrections afterwards when they are assembling things into the modules. It's pretty neat to see the difference, or how much a giant I beam can bend when it runs through an automatic welder with too much heat on it.

My dad's specific issue was that no self respecting welder at his workplace would have left it like that, let alone have it passed an QC checks. For context it looked like someone was only learning with a lot of spatter and some obvious defects in the weld, and there was even a bit of weld wire stuck to the frame that had been painted over. That was on the frame in the engine compartment, which doesn't really give a great deal of confidence for all the welds on the frame that you can't see (especially when they usually set up the lines to make it as easy as possible for the welders access wise). Pretty hard to sell it as still being proudly hand made when the welds are really poorly done. When stuff like that is automated the quality is usually really high (once they get everything dialed in).

Both shipyards have incorporated Lean Six Sigma, which is similar name but is more of an industrial engineering practice looking at the overall processes and eliminating/reducing unecessary steps to minimize the time something takes to make something (and improving the overall efficiency that way).

I think the original Six sigma is more for making widgets where you have a high output and looking at minimizing the number of units with defects. General idea for all of them is comparable, but always have to keep in mind that they are targetting whatever is a 'good enough' quality in a repeatable manner, not necessarily a high quality. That's why you can buy something from an ISO certified shop and have it still be a piece of garbage, as all it means is that they can repeatedly make the same piece of garbage while documenting it for traceability.

 

[Underway]

Six Sigma is a quality control process where you try and get the number defects in a product to the "sixth standard deviation" (sigma representing the greek letter for standard deviation) or in other words, 0.00044% of parts are defect-free. From my industrial processes class ( 6 years ago now) it's best applied to large throughput items where you can accurately measure deviations over large sample sizes of the same item. (it was developed by Motorola to improve cell phone quality for example).

Lean Six Sigma looks to reduce waste in the manufacturing process. I think that's the difference. We aren't manufacturing a ship, we're constructing one. The very description implies more one-off methods and craftsmanship vs industrial processes. I'm sure some of the procedures can be applied to AOPS (the pipe shop or steel cutting for example), but a holistic look at the entire process shows other QC methods are better in many cases.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Six Sigma is a quality control process where you try and get the number defects in a product to the "sixth standard deviation" (sigma representing the greek letter for standard deviation) or in other words, 0.00044% of parts are defect-free. From my industrial processes class ( 6 years ago now) it's best applied to large throughput items where you can accurately measure deviations over large sample sizes of the same item. (it was developed by Motorola to improve cell phone quality for example).

Lean Six Sigma looks to reduce waste in the manufacturing process. I think that's the difference. We aren't manufacturing a ship, we're constructing one. The very description implies more one-off methods and craftsmanship vs industrial processes. I'm sure some of the procedures can be applied to AOPS (the pipe shop or steel cutting for example), but a holistic look at the entire process shows other QC methods are better in many cases.

Lean six sigma is being used in the manufacturing side on the work order level; even though the specifics are different the overall process is the same, and it's about cutting down your margins and looking at ways to reduce re-work. With modular construction the idea is to break down one 1000 lb marshmallow into the smallest unit and build up from there, so the construction process repeats the same kind of manufacturing processes hundreds of times with different specifics, and you can easily apply it.

Both shipyards have small teams of green and yellow belts, and I believe one or two black belts. A few do it full time on specific projects when issues are identified, but part of the shipyard modernizing including updating their process and approach, so there are a number of supervisors/managers familiar with Lean Six Sigma and similar industrial engineering improvement approaches as well. All of that is part of the 'Target State', which builds in mechanisms like that for continuous improvement so they can get to comparable productivity levels as more experienced, modern shipyards.

 

[JMCanada]

A bit off-topic, but just read a story on Total Quality Management (which turns into a leadership story) in SRUA, later FMF Cape Scott in Halifax , MEJ spring 2021, pages 22-24.
Wish you like it.

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The Maritime Engineering Journal (MEJ) has been the principal publication of the Naval Technical Community since 1982. Instituted as part of the MARE “Get Well” program in 1982, it intended to instill a professional pride and esprit du corps among the Naval Technical Community.

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