Statistical Procedure for Panel Block Assembly in Shipbuilding

ABSTRACT A statistical procedure to estimate the probability of successful sliding of transverse elements through the longitudinals in shipbuilding panel block assembly is proposed. It consists of developing a custom statistical solution to control the quality of shipbuilding block assembly process, which helps to meet the requirements of production time, cost, and resources consumption. This proposal addresses a critical shipbuilding challenge: the panel block assembly process, which involves inserting transverse pieces through panels containing longitudinal components. This statistical procedure estimates the probability of successful block assembly before the process starts, taking into account inputs such as panel dimensions, panel structure, and transverse stiffener. A comprehensive simulation study has been performed to evaluate the statistical procedure performance. In addition, an actual database obtained from Navantia shipyards has been used to obtain information about the mean values and dispersion of the block assembly parameters. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is applied in order to obtain information about the most critical inputs for process improvement. This statistical tool proposes an alternative to evaluate the proficiency of shipyards to perform panel block assembly process during the vessel construction. The identification of those critical variables in the panel assembly process and the quantification of their influence in the studied process are goals that have been also achieved.