CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
6 June 2007
Implementation Investments
Coast Guard Boat Builder Uses SolidWorks Software to Execute $600 Million Contract
Kvichak Marine Industries of Seattle is using SolidWorks ® software to design a new 45-foot Coast Guard patrol boat for a wide range of maritime situations, including search and rescue, environmental protection, law enforcement, and port/coastal security.
The company's prototype won the design contract for the boat in a three-vendor competition in 2006. A special provision in the $600 million contract requires each of the boat's 5,000 parts to be fully modeled in CAD software. The data will fuel an interactive Web-based assembly that Coast Guard engineers can use in maintaining the boat for decades to come. Kvichak is using SolidWorks custom property capabilities to annotate the Web-based model.
"SolidWorks software makes it easy for our engineers to take the concepts in their minds and model them in three dimensions," said Kvichak engineer Leo Schowengerdt. "SolidWorks is so intuitive and has such a broad range of capabilities that it's the natural choice - really the only choice - for meeting this challenge and designing a better product."
The boat is called the Response Boat - Medium, or RB-M, and is intended to succeed the Coast Guard's 35-year-old fleet of 41-foot utility boats, the multi-mission workhorse of the Coast Guard. The contract anticipates as many as 250 RB-Ms will be manufactured by Kvichak and its partner in the project, Marinette Marine of Wisconsin.
Kvichak has integrated 30 licenses of SolidWorks software with its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system so that when designs are approved, engineers can initiate purchasing and manufacturing workflow with a single mouse click. Engineers use COSMOSWorks® design analysis software to optimize the design of individual structural parts as well as study effects of forces on the entire boat. These forces include collisions, wave impacts, and random forces such as those exerted on a hull when balanced on the peak of a wave.
Kvichak selected SolidWorks software over specialized marine industry CAD packages from smaller companies. "We wanted to work with a company that had the resources to aggressively update features and provide robust support whenever we needed it," said Schowengerdt. "SolidWorks Corporation has come through as we hoped."
Kvichak engineers use SolidWorks PDMWorks® data management software to allow more than 20 engineers to concurrently design the boat without version control issues. They use SolidWorks Routing Software to lay electrical cables, then refine them as the design develops. SolidWorks eDrawings® e-mail-enabled collaboration tool easily and economically facilitates design sharing with authorized external parties, including the Coast Guard engineering review team.
"A boat is a formidable mechanical engineering challenge," said Rainer Gawlick, SolidWorks vice president of worldwide marketing. "Every design decision has implications for the performance, handling, and in this case, life-saving capability of the vessel. We've worked closely with Kvichak to understand its challenges in designing better products, knowledge that will help shape future versions of SolidWorks software."
Kvichak uses authorized SolidWorks reseller Hawk Ridge Systems for ongoing software training, implementation, and support.
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