ShipLTDR Business Overview

Shipbuilding systems require geometry integrated with multiple product breakdowns, component properties, material properties, relationships, system structure, functional description, physical description, multiple geometric representations, joints, and connections.

Several prototype projects have demonstrated the potential of the international STEP shipbuilding standards to provide this capability. Unfortunately, there are almost no commercially available translators that support the STEP shipbuilding application protocols. This has forced the shipbuilding community to use commercially available AP203 or AP214 translators, import geometry as reference, and then manually create ship specific objects that define structure, piping, HVAC, raceways. etc. The corresponding ship product model data is then exchanged either as hardcopy or as a separate file containing a selected subset of the data.

Use of STEP AP239, Product Life Cycle Support, to define product structure and the relationships between objects, and reference data libraries to define an extensible set of properties. PLCS has been adopted for use by a number of Defense Departments, Aerospace companies, as well as Shipbuilding companies. PLCS translators are expected to soon be commercially available. Although it is focused on through-life support, it can be extended to exchange ship product model data.

This DEX follows this approach and allows Ship data to be exchanged in PLCS format with geometric data exchanged using companion AP's AP203 and AP214.