Security Research Review

Towards Modern Ship Design and Shipbuilding in India

Vice Admiral Rajeshwer Nath, PVSM, AVSM, VSM (retd)

Introduction

The commencement of construction of the Air Defence Ship on 11 April 2005 at the Cochin Shipyard Limited, Kochi marks the beginning of a new era of ship design and shipbuilding technology in India . We had to our credit the successful design and building of destroyers, frigates, corvettes, fast attack crafts and auxiliary vessels e.g. LST(L)s, survey vessels, fleet tankers etc. The building of an air defence ship brings India into the elite club of those very few nations in the world that can design and build all types of warships up to aircraft carriers. This paper reviews the developments in this field of ship design and shipbuilding and the future prospects in India .

Abstract

Ship design and shipbuilding in India mainly pertains to warships.  We are one of the very few proud nations in the world who design and build warships for their Navies.  The Navy’s in-house design organisation has gradually grown into a fully computerised unit having the necessary special techniques for stealth, hydrodynamic, ship motion, structural and dynamic predictions.  We need to continue to move forward and update the design tools e.g. modern 3D computer software with allied application software to automate the design process with necessary checks and balances and transfer data and drawings securely to shipyards not only on magnetic media but also on-line without the need for duplication effort by the shipyard. 

The infrastructure available in our shipyards is ancient and not suited to modern shipbuilding at optimum cost, quality and time frames.  Nevertheless, we have built warships at defence shipyards.  These shipyards have delivered warships to the design specifications given by the Navy and met their specifications.  However, we are not happy because the manhours taken by our shipyards to build a frigate / destroyer is more than 10 times that taken by modern shipyards abroad.  Also, the calendar months taken by our shipyards to build a frigate / destroyer have been three times those taken by foreign / modern shipyards.  The excess calendar months can to some extent be attributed to delays in decision-making, indigenisation and delays in the availability of payload and other nominated equipment, which are beyond the shipyard’s control.  However the very excess manhours taken do account for the lack of productivity, which can be attributed to not so modern facilities available in our shipyards and also to room for improvement in ship production, management, working environment of Indian worker and lack of multi skilled work force concept.  In spite of this not so encouraging scenario, we still produce warships that are cheaper than those manufactured anywhere else in the world.  This is because of the relatively lower labour rates and also due to prices of equipment purchased from the former Soviet Union and Russia have been highly competitive and economical to us.  On an average, the shipyard effort in a shipbuilding programme is about 40 per cent of the total cost. If this 40 per cent component (having taken 10 times more man-hours) is still cheaper in India , we can foresee the enormous advantage in improving productivity to match the man-hours to international standards. We can then produce warships at costs that are most economical and even foreign shipyards will not be able to compete. This is possible because the shipbuilding labour rates in India are about one fifteenth of those in Europe , one tenth of those in Japan / USA and one fifth of those in Korea .

Therefore, what are we to do? Firstly, within the existing infrastructure, improve management of shipbuilding, provide the right environment, introduce multi skilled trade and improve worker productivity as defined in section 15 to 26 of this paper.  These suggestions, when implemented, will improve efficiency by at least 20 per cent and even with existing facilities, the man-hours taken will be 80 per cent of those taken now. 

Secondly, provide incremental modernisation of existing shipyards to enable high crane capacities, larger block construction, module workshops for advanced fitting out, wet basins and dry docks independent of too much dependence on dredging.  This  modernisation of infrastructure will of course have to be supplemented by modern concepts of lean manufacturing and total CAD/CAM.  These will improve productivity by another 30 per cent.  With modernised facilities and modern ways of working, the man-hours taken will be 50 per cent of those taken now with existing facilities.  Thirdly, in the long run setting up new modern shipyards with latest up to date facilities and layout will reduce man-hours by 70 to 80 per cent and will eventually catch up with man-hours as per international practice.  The capital expenditure involved in these recommendations will be more than outweighed by the reduction in the cost of the warships.  Therefore, we must continue to improve warship building and achieve self-reliance.  Moreover, our shipyards and the industry are urged to develop competence to provide comprehensive Integrated Logistic Support and performance warranty for warships as brought out in para 5 of the paper. 

We are also among the very few nations in the world which could design and build submarines. We built two submarines during the 1980s and suddenly the programme has halted for the last 15 years for reasons, which are not technical.  We need to revive submarine building at the earliest and also open a second line of submarine construction to catch up on lost time.  The special features of submarine building are briefly covered in section 6 of this paper.  The capability to design and build submarines indigenously exists in the country and needs to be utilised and nurtured.

As far as merchant ships are concerned, our country has lagged behind.  A few nations like Japan and Korea have virtually captured the entire market because of the excellence achieved by them in designing and building of ships (e.g. bulk carriers in 6 months and containerships in 12 months).  We have to seriously work hard to aim for achieving such standards. The Indian merchant fleet consists of about 200 ships (overseas going).  Taking a 20-year perspective, we shall need 10 ships every year for our own market.  In addition, we have 425 coastal ships and about 21 of these need replacement every year.  Therefore, there is a good case for reviving merchant shipbuilding within the country.

Our commercial shipyards have not kept pace with the technological developments in optimum production of ships.  We need to provide incremental  modernisation to these shipyards to make new merchant ship building economically viable in the country.  The remarks made for improving warship building in previous paragraphs are also applicable here.           The internal market need for producing 10 ships (seagoing) and 21 coastal ships every year should provide the necessary incentives.  Government can assist in providing income tax incentives, export incentive credits, tax incentives for money spent on training and facility improvement and free export or trade zone incentives (shipyards could import supplies free of duty for ships). The assured internal market, cheaper labour rates and Government incentives or support and prospects of producing ships cheaper than anywhere else in the world should encourage private industries to get collaboration or joint ventures with leading shipbuilders in the world and start a new shipbuilding wave in our country.  

The quest and zest for increasing productivity, reducing cost and improving quality in shipbuilding, warship building and submarine building continues in the world.  The latest trends are digital shipbuilding innovation brought about by software solutions for Product Life Cycle Management (PLM).  IBM and Dassault Systems are offering such solutions using software Catia, Enovia and Delmia.  This will improve collaboration / integration between design and manufacturing.  The next generation digital shipbuilding system will simulate and optimise the entire shipbuilding life cycle process in a virtual environment from the initial development stage to launch. The US Navy Office of Naval Research and Samsung Heavy Industries Co Ltd (SHI) are very actively pursuing the digital shipyard concept with virtual reality.  LPD 17 USS San Antonio is the first surface ship ever designed in virtual reality.  It is reasonable to expect substantial quantitative and qualitative benefits from investment in digital manufacturing.  Returns in the range of 10 to 1 are realistic with digital mock up, process re-engineering and as a component of an integrated Product Life Management (PLM) solution.  We must take cognisance of these futuristic developments and take them into account in our modernisation plans for ship design and shipbuilding both in military and commercial sectors as discussed earlier.  Joint ventures with sharing of initial investment, workload, and profits to mutual benefit of both sides will yield quicker results.  

Warship Design & Building

We are one of the few proud nations in the world, which designs and builds warships for tits Navy.  Credit goes to the Indian Navy who nurtured its in-house design organisation and credit also goes to the Ministry of Defence which motivated and encouraged our defence shipyards to take on the challenge of warship building.  The Indian Navy provided the trained specialist officers to manage these shipyards.  The indigenisation organisations set up by the Ministry of Defence provided the opportunities for indigenous development of equipment, which is fitted in warships.  Thus Indian industry participated in the Defence Sector by helping the Navy to gradually move from a buyer’s Navy to a builder’s Navy. This paper reviews the gradual evolution of this capability for the indigenous design and building of warships.  Although total self-reliance exists in design and building of warships, we are yet to become self reliant on weapon systems, gas turbine generators, control systems and allied special machinery and equipment.  The in-house design organisation of the Navy has been updating its resources and these are now almost fully computerised.  The shipyards need urgent modernisation to apply the latest techniques of large pre-outfitting and block construction.  Our existing shipyards can be modernised only within constraints of geographical locations and space limitations and water depths available.  In the long run, we do need to have a new modern shipyard to build warships in cost, time and quality competitive with international practice.  Indeed, in the meantime, we can analyse and focus on areas, which can improve our ship design, and shipbuilding practices in a most cost effective manner.  This will depend upon disciplined decision making at all levels and strict adherence to time schedules.  The reasons as to why we have not been able to adhere to such disciplined action also need to be analysed. 

Our dependence upon foreign sources for major weapon systems, our ambition to have the latest and up-to-date equipment, and our policy of complex multi-agency (directly and indirectly involved) participative management have prevented us from having clear-cut and firm cost and time programmes for shipbuilding.  But on the other hand, this has helped us to keep an edge in the overall performance and operational capabilities of our warships.

Warship Design: Warship designs are specific to the Navy and this fact was realised by the leaders in the Indian Navy in the 1950s and progressive steps were initiated to have the capability of warship design within the Navy.  In 1957, the Corps of Naval Constructors was set up to have specialisation in Naval Design and Construction.  The officers were trained in UK , USA , USSR and also the training programmes that had been established in India at IIT Delhi and with Naval training establishments.  Concurrently, postgraduate dagger  courses were introduced for the marine engineering and electrical engineering branches.  The idea was to have a composite design organisation with all disciplines i.e. Naval Constructors, Marine Engineers, and Electrical / Weapon Engineers qualified for the design of state of the art warships. 

The Navy’s design organisation has to its credit the design of many types and classes of warships.  These include the Delhi class destroyers, Brahmaputra class frigates, Kora class Corvettes, Godavari class frigates, Khukri class corvettes, Magar class LSTLs, Sandhayak class survey vessels and seaward defence boats etc.  The capability to design warships came about not only through trained manpower but also through collaboration with UK for building Leander class frigates during the 1960s and 1970s.  Subsequently, the design interface of FSU and Russian weapon systems on indigenous designs strengthened our capabilities.   

The Navy’s design organisation is fully computerised and has the necessary techniques for stealth (RCS, IR, noise) prediction, hydrodynamics, ship motion, structural, powerful and dynamic predictions.  We need to move forward and continuously update the design tools of 3-D type comprehensive computer software with allied application software to automate the design process with necessary checks and balances and transfer data and drawings securely to shipyards on both magnetic medium and online without any need for duplication of effort by the shipyard.  Of course, if we have to have complete self-reliance, then Indian industry must come forth to design and manufacture state-of-the-art weapon systems, gas turbines generators, control systems and other allied special systems for warships.            

 Warship building: The infrastructure available in our shipyards is ancient and not suited to modern shipbuilding within optimum cost, quality and time frames.  Geographical location of shipyards poses problems of dependence on tide and heavy dredging before movement of ships in and out of the shipyards.  The modernisation of shipyards with better and augmented facilities will be limited to availability of space and other constraints.  Nevertheless, we have built warships at defence shipyards.  These shipyards have delivered warships to the design specifications given by the Navy.  Within the constraints of existing facilities, are our shipyards efficient?  The answer is no.  We are unable to produce ships in quality and quantity in time even commensurate with existing facilities.  This, not so happy state of affairs is the cumulative effect of factors such as:

-        Order for series production of ships is not given and as such production lines are seldom fully loaded.

-              Administrative and bureaucratic hurdles and delays in sanctions for the ships, delays in sanction for model testing and delays in sanction for special design inputs.

-        Telescopic concept for design and production hampered by delays in decision-making.

-             Too many workers and too many trades in shipyards. Lack of multi skilled tradesman. Worker environment leaves much room for improvement.

-              Shipyards have to depend on other organisations for dry-docking. Too much dependence on tide and dredging for moving ships in and out from shipyard basins.

-              Crane capacities are small and no arrangements for advance fitting-out. Too much dependence on measurements at site to manufacture items. Less use of composite drawings for piping services. No facility for shot blasting and primer coating of weldment blocks.

-              Berths, jetties, dry docks not equipped with adequate and systematic services and welding points, gas outlets, power points etc.  This results in long cables, hoses etc all over the place leading to unhygienic shipbuilding conditions. 

-              Room for improving co-ordination in design, planning, materials, and production management in the shipyard.

-              Delays in availability of systems and need for accelerating indigenisation process.

We need to improve warship building systems and processes in India .  The time taken by our shipyards to build warships should have been commensurate with the infrastructure and facilities available in the shipyards.  The delays have also been due to delays in decision-making, delays in finalisation of contracts with other countries for supply of weapon systems.  Improving infrastructure to enable pre outfitting and manufacture of larger blocks and larger cranes to shift them to the slipway can of course, reduce shipbuilding time. Decision-making can be improved by having more indigenous systems and having disciplined action plans with suppliers that match the construction schedule.  Ship construction should only start when all inputs are nearly complete i.e. design is complete, systems have been selected.  Since shipyard slipways are free and workshops are idle, shipyards commence work without waiting for all inputs to come.  The shipyards should take on the responsibilities for detailed design and marry CAD/CAM fully in their shipbuilding process. The introduction of multiple trade system will reduce man-hours and save time by reducing man-days.  We should continue to seek means for productivity improvement.          

Unique Nature of Global Warship Building

All nations in the world have endeavoured that their Navies have a technological edge to face any threat.  As such, performance factors have hitherto always had precedence over cost factors.  However, in recent years, cost has become increasingly important. Rather than reducing the performance capabilities of their ships, the Navies are interested in reducing costs by adopting more efficient practices in the acquisition, design and construction processes. The design cost of US warships have been reported to be as below:

          DD651    in    US        6,000,000   man-hours

          DD173    in    Japan    1,200,000    man-hours

          DD963    in    US         5,000,000    man-hours

          D647       in    US       3,000,000    man-hours

Such figures for Indian design costs are not readily available.  However, there is always room for reducing design costs by adopting integrated CAD/CAM solutions.

The construction hours of some warships have been reported as follows:

The Indian shipyards take about 10 times the man-hours taken by Japanese shipyards and 3 times the calendar months.  There is a lot of room for improvement in modernising Indian shipyards and reducing build periods.   

Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) and performance warranty for warship

The prime contracts for the recent warships in the world include a comprehensive requirement for ILS, necessary to ensure that the ships are effectively operated, maintained and supported throughout the life of the warship.  The elements of the ILS package include maintenance planning, supply support documentation, manpower, training, technical documentation, facilities, storage and transportation of support and test equipment and computing support.  The recent contracts for warships, which include ILS performance warranty, the prime contractor has guaranteed an operational availability of 80 per cent for a period of 10 ship years.  These new contracts also include setting up of ship support centre to support the development and integration testing of both the platform control and monitoring system and the combat systems and to train the Navy personnel.  Our shipyards and industry should develop such competence and provide such services to the Navy.  This will be more economical and efficient and will increase teeth to tail ratio and enable the emerging lean Navy to perform better and achieve excellence in mission operations.

Submarine Design and Building

Although the Indian Navy has been operating submarines since 1960s, the indigenous design and building of submarines was realised with the designing and building of SSK submarines of Type 1500 in collaboration with Germany .  MDL Mumbai, the premier shipyard in the country, built two SSK submarines in the late 1980s.  We were among the very few nations in the world who could build submarines. The programme for continuation of submarine building in India came to a sudden halt due to non-technical reasons and the infrastructure developed at MDL Mumbai has been idle and unutilised for the last almost 12 years.  Efforts have been made to revive submarine building with more emphasis on indigenous development of systems in the Indian industry.  Such efforts are continuing for the last 12 years and persistence will bring success one day.  This will open up new avenues of co-operation and work for the Indian industry.  The design organisation is well equipped to undertake design and design-production interaction for submarines.  

Special features of submarine building

There are many changes necessary to adopt traditional shipbuilding methods to modern submarine construction technology. The complexity of modern submarines requires a high level of discipline from the submarine designer, submarine builder as well as those responsible for the design of machinery and equipment and the selection of materials. The strong links forged between the designer, shipbuilder and supplier of specialised equipment and materials are key factors in the technical success of a submarine programme. The total effort involved in modern submarine design, from concept, development and up to generation of working drawings is approximately 1,000 man-years over a 7-year period.  The cost of a full range of design and support to build tasks is equal to about one third of the construction costs of the first of the class.  Submarine design and building requires special efforts in weight control, ventilation and air-conditioning, mock up, modelling etc.  The steel for building submarines is to be high yield, low alloy, fine grain, fully killed, quenched and tempered.  Thicker and heavier plates are needed for the pressure hull requiring special fabrication and welding techniques.  The hull outfit in a submarine requires stricter standards.  The ability of the shipbuilder to produce pipe works to exacting service standards, configured within very restrictive space envelopes and in the quantities necessary, is one of the demanding parameters of a submarine programme.  1/5^th scale three-dimensional models of each compartment are made with all relevant structure, equipment, piping and cabling represented.  Production information is also obtained from computer models.  The electrical outfit for an advanced submarine has to service the complexities of the propulsion systems, as well as, greatly increased electrical demand for DC and AC systems in a variety of voltages and frequencies to suit control, instrumentation, communication, navigation, weapon and life support systems.  The modern trend is to complete more outfitting in workshop rather than in the cramped confine of the submarines.  Nearly 80 per cent outfitting is completed prior to the launch of the submarine. 

ARM Technique  

Availability, reliability and maintainability are essential factors in the design of any modern warship and more so for submarines.  These must be considered at the earliest possible stage of design and modelling to assure optimum safety and service performance.  The ship availability modelling is a powerful tool used to assess the probability of a warship / submarine achieving given mission profile.  The assessment begins by producing a ship dependency diagram showing the relationship between the operational characteristics and the systems / equipment, which support them.  Each element is then examined to determine its likely failure rate, causes, and consequences (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis).  The results are applied to ship availability date for various mission profiles.  This approach is most useful in comparing the reliability of varying system proposals in the design stage.  By the use of models and mock-ups, equipment maintenance envelopes and removal routes are carefully designed, checked and then verified finally at ship.  Design decisions affect through-life cost and ARM techniques coupled with systematic design reviews offer a means of achieving an acceptable balance between procurement and upkeep costs and operational targets.  

Merchant Ship Design and Building

The Indian Scenario: The majority of the merchant ships owned by Indian companies have been designed and built abroad.  A few countries like Japan and Korea have virtually captured the world merchant ship market.  This is due to their excellence in design, quality and minimal shipbuilding times for delivery e.g. 6 months for bulk carriers and 12 months for containerships.  Indian shipyards have not been able to compete in the design and building of merchant ships.  The Indian merchant ship fleet consists of about 200 ships (overseas going).  Taking into account 20 years life, we shall need 10 ships every year for our own market.  There are, in addition, 425 coastal ships i.e. we need 20 such ships every year.  There is a strong case for reviving shipbuilding within the country.  The Indian shipyards have not kept pace with the technological developments in optimum production of ships.  We need to provide incremental modernisation to these shipyards to make new merchant shipbuilding economically viable in the country.  The internal market of 10 seagoing ships and 20 coastal ships every year should provide the necessary incentive.  We need to take major initiatives to improve productivity through technological automation, standardisation and rationalisation of design, engineering and production activities and reduction in work force.  Government can encourage, support and assist in providing income tax incentives, export incentive credit, tax incentives for money spent on training and facility improvement and free export on trade zone incentives and shipyards could be allowed to import supplies free of duty. The prospects of producing ships cheaper than anywhere else in the world should encourage private industry to get into collaborations with leading shipbuilders in the world and create a new wave of ship building in India .  

Worldwide Shipbuilding Industry 

The market for ships is a global market.  Ship operations, ship owners and shipbuilders freely cross national borders to obtain a price, time and technological advantage.  The shipbuilding industries of nations with comparative advantage, based on responsive markets, cheap labour, or superior technology would be expected to prosper.  The economics of nations that lack such an advantage would be expected to allocate resources to other activities.  This simple logic / model does not fit the realities of world shipbuilding.  This is so because most trading nations perceive the shipbuilding industrial base to be a vital national resource on other than strictly economic grounds.  The national policy of most trading nations reflects the primary requirement to maintain some degree of control over the resources needed to move their products to foreign markets.  They have, therefore, industrial policies aimed at assuring the existence of a nationally controlled fleet.  Some of these nations have supported their shipbuilding industries in order to provide the means of replacing the national fleet should it be threatened militarily or economically.  Other nations have supported the shipbuilding industry as a ‘hub’ industry for economic development.  Many nations also view their national shipbuilding industry as essential for defence purposes.  

The World Shipbuilding Market

The international market for merchant ships has historically been cyclical with nine major cycles.  With the closing of the Suez Canal in 1959 and the oil embargo in 1973, the cyclical curve had peaks and troughs with new extremes.  The first half of the 1970s was a boom period for the world’s shipbuilders.  Between 1970 and 1975, the world fleet deadweight tonnage increased by 70 per cent.  Much of this tonnage comprised supertankers built to carry crude oil from the Middle East to Europe and Japan .  In 1973, the world order book was equivalent in deadweight tonnage to 50 per cent of the world fleet.  After the Arab oil embargo in 1973, the entire world shipbuilding market contracted dramatically.  The worldwide order book declined from a peak of 242.3 m deadweight tonnage (dwt) in 1979 to 32.0 m in 1979.  Many of the marginal shipbuilders who were able to penetrate the market during the boom years went bankrupt or were nationalised.  The highly automated yards in Europe were either nationalised or restructured.  Even Japan suffered many bankruptcies and a reduction in shipbuilding capacity of 35 per cent.  Although some recovery occurred in the world shipbuilding market, its condition throughout the 1980s can be described as depressed.  However, there were modest increases in the 1990s.  The estimated installed yard capacity for shipbuilding worldwide is about 18 million compensated gross tonne (27 million dwt) of new tonnage per year.  The new shipbuilding requirements for the current period 1975-2010 have been projected to be of the order of 50 million dwt per year.  As such, the demand is almost twice the installed capacity.  Therefore, there will be pressure to expand world shipbuilding capacity during the early 21^st century.  Japan became the world leader in commercial shipbuilding in 1956 and has continued to maintain that position.