Today, I would like to speak with you about my views regarding the advent of a new information-intensive era in the Japanese shipbuilding industry.
2. Characteristics of Shipbuilding Technologies in Japan 1)
Analysis of past and present shipbuilding technologies shows that their characteristics can be divided into the following three groups:
(1) Steady technical improvement,
(2) Accumulation of related technologies, and
(3) Application of simulation technologies.
First. since ships are practically fully matured products. major innovative changes cannot be expected as a result of a single technological breakthrough. Consequently, the "accumulation of steady technical improvements" in each field has been essential. In fact, our design technology has led to many good results for improving the economic efficiency of ships. Improvements in manufacturing technology have also been remarkable, an(l it is not too much to say that this has formed the basis for the leading position the Japanese shipbuilding industry has enjoyed in the world.
Second, an extremely large number of fields are closely related to the shipbuilding industry making it essential that their technical innovations are adopted quickly and integrated into a unified system known as a ship. This is indeed a world of synthesis, and the Japanese shipbuilding industry has. at least until today. been most successful in skillfully bringing this synthesis to fruition.
In addition. the shipbuilding industry has imposed its requirements on these related industries and has adopted their counterproposals bravely and positively. In this way. the shipbuilding and related industries have been able to mutually improve their technologies and strengthen the industrial foundations of each other. Figure 2 shows typical examples of technological improvements and peripheral spin-off technologies which have been closely associated with the evolution of ships.
The shipbuilding industry has also had plenty of experience in the application of simulation technology. One such example is the field of developing efficient hull forms. It has become common to develop an efficient hull form based on the results gained from trial runs of many newly built ships as well as from tank tests carried out on model ships about 4 meters in length, and then to apply these results directly to actual ships of new project without any tests on ships of an intermediate size. In case of improving structural arrangement. it has become common practice to apply an alteration directly to actual ships after confirmation of the proposed changes through analytical research. It is not too much to
