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Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK

2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects


ENABLING A SERVICE DESIGN PERSPECTIVE ON SHIP DESIGN

E Gernez, DNV GL, Norway
K Nordby and B Sevaldson, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway

SUMMARY

Ship design is a collaborative exercise that involves many participants from numerous disciplines, who are expected to
manage a demanding set of requirements with a broad range of possible design outcomes. It is then usually a challenge
to connect several highly specialised experts, each bringing their own perspective and tools, into a collective exploration
of the design space. The success of ship design projects directly depends on the coordination of, and the cooperation
between, the participants. In this paper, we propose a user-centered perspective for ship design: which actors are
involved throughout the entire process, in what environments do they meet and work together, what type of information
do they exchange, what tools are they using to exchange this information, and what value is created through these
exchanges? Existing practices in ship design are reviewed, based on literature and interview surveys, and new user-
centered processes and tools are proposed and discussed.


1. INTRODUCTION

This research draws on experience from participation in
ship design projects as a consultant for DNV GL
Maritime Advisory. This included assistance in shaping
the initial ship design outline, developing a strategy to
select a shipyard, concept design, ship design
optimisation, retrofit of existing design and support of
optimal operation. Other participants in these projects
included an approval engineer from the classification
society, a new build manager and ship designer from the
ship-owning company and shipyards, an independent
ship designer, engineers in hydrodynamics, structure,
systems and machinery, a model basin technician, a
technology supplier and navigating crew. The ship types
considered are all commercial vessels, ranging from
standard off-the-shelf designs to custom designs.

A recent collaboration with the School of Architecture
and Design (AHO) triggered the initiation of a 3-year
PhD research project to examine ship design processes
and tools in depth. The research drew upon AHO
expertise in user-centered design (UCD), as applied to
the Maritime Oil and Gas industry [1-3]. In this paper,
we present the preliminary work conducted so far, and
outline further research needs.

Firstly, a service design perspective on ship design is
introduced, and this is used to review and comment on
existing ship design practices (processes and tools). New
processes and tools are then proposed and discussed,
before we draw our conclusions.

2. A SERVICE DESIGN PERSPECTIVE ON
SHIP DESIGN

2.1 PRESENTATION

Emerging from UCD, service design is a relatively young
design discipline, although it is already in use in many
service-based industries [4]. The primary goal of service
design is improve the experience of the actors of a given



service, defining actors as all the participants involved in
the making, offering and receiving of the service. In this
context, ship design is viewed as a service offered to
someone who needs a ship (e.g. a ship owner, who, in
turn, is capable of offering a transport service with their
ship), and in which the actors are all the participants in a
ship design project; in a wide perspective, this also
includes building, operation and decommissioning. The
experience of the service users is defined as how
enjoyable, rewarding, satisfying, time and cost-effective,
satisfactory at upholding certain quality standards, etc.,
the ship design process has been, depending on the
considered actor.

To the authors knowledge, this is the first time the
principles of service design have been applied to ship
design. The main principles are briefly outlined below,
and have been freely adapted from the service design
method as taught at AHO [5].

2.1 (a) Actors

As mentioned in the introduction, the actors involved in a
ship design process are numerous and diverse. Each actor
usually has their own agenda, resources and limitations.
All together, they form a complex network, for which it
is necessary to identify the drivers in terms of
information creation, decision-making and economic
power, to enable the process to go forward. The addition
of a layer of multi-cultural exchange (e.g. when a
Russian captain is commanding a ship flagged in Panama
with a crew from the Philippines, a Norwegian owner
and a South Korean designer and builder) makes the
exchanges in the network even more complex. The goal
of service design is to make these exchanges a great
experience for each one of the actors.




Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
2.1 (b) Touch-points

Touch-points are all the meeting points between the
actors throughout the ship design process. For example, a
meeting at the ship owners office with the new build
manager and a representative of a shipyard will make for
several touch-points: the room where the meeting is
taking place and the design specification outline as an
outcome of the meeting. Touch-points are a possible
source of intervention for the service designer to improve
the experience of the actors. For example, the touch-
point meeting room can be equipped with technology
that facilitates the visualisation of the current fleet of the
ship owner, and the expression of their design
requirements for a new ship project, and the touch-point
design specification outline can be a template pre-
prepared for a specific type of ship, with a list of
equipment and desired functions; a kind of menu to
order. Section 4.2 provides further details regarding key
touch-points in a ship design process, as well as
propositions for the design, to improve the user
experience.

2.1 (c) Timeline, information flows, value creation

A timeline is a convenient way of showing the successive
steps in the design process, enabling the actors involved
at different steps to have a clear view of what they are
expected to contribute to the overall process. It is also a
convenient way of displaying touch-points, as well as
flows of information and value creation. A simple
example is shown in Figure 1 below.


Figure 1: Simplified timeline showing actors,
information flow and value creation. (This figure is
reproduced in larger format at the end of the article.)

2.2 RATIONALE

There has been no discussion around the fact that ship
design is becoming an ever more complex discipline,
involving increasingly numerous and diverse actors,
highly advanced tools, time constraints and market
fluctuations. Our argument is that this increasing
complexity is experienced first-hand by the ship design
actors, and, as such, they must be re-placed at the centre
of the process, so that their specific needs can be catered
for. The experience of the Norwegian ship designer and
builder Ulstein, who specialises in offshore vessels (a
particularly complex segment of ships) illustrates this
need very well [6]:


Over the years, it has become clearer () that handling
these challenges of complexity, uncertainty and
ambiguity are more of a managerial mastery task rather
than a classic naval architecture and marine engineering
based ship design task. It seems as if traditional naval
architecture and marine engineering disciplines do not
suffice as the basis for further enhancing such tasks. Next
generation ship design models and approaches should,
therefore, include also the necessary management tools,
social science and support mechanisms to handle the
extended system based ship design process.() Thus we
argue that the existing and more traditional ship design
approaches are particularly weak when it comes to
handling and cater for a multi-dimensional and multi-
disciplinary complex ship design approach.

Service design is proposed here as an inspirational
method to cater for these necessary management tools,
social science and support mechanisms traditionally
missing in published ship design practices, as described
in the same paper, by reviewing 29 different ship design
processes described in [7]. The extended system based
ship design process is defined as a process that accounts
for both upstream (the ship as a revenue-making asset)
and downstream (the ship as an operational tool, operated
by human operators) dimensions of the design process,
by including all the actors involved in the ship design
process, from the finance investor considering ships as
liquid assets, to the ship owner, responsible for a large
fleet with a terribly complex and challenging set of
international regulations and fluctuating freight rates, to
the crew who must find a certain degree of ergonomics in
operating the ship.

Figure 2 below illustrates the difference of this approach
with published ship design processes:
- actors are an integral, central part of the
problem to solve
- different steps of the process will involve
different actors, each one bringing their
expertise, tools and data
- the service designers mission is to provide an
overview for all the participants in the process,
and to document the exchange of data and value
creation between the actors, by focusing on the
actors meeting points or touch-points.


Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
Figure 2: A service design perspective of ship design.
(This figure is reproduced in larger format at the end of
the article.)


3. EXISTING PROCESSES AND TOOLS FOR
SHIP DESIGN

3.1 PROCESSES

Here, process refers to the communication of ship
design processes in the literature. The proceedings of the
2009 International Marine Design Conference [7]
concluded with the observation that many ship design
models have been invented, because of the open-
endedness of design, that is, every ship design process is
different in its imperatives and constraints, and may
therefore require a different process each time. This
provides another argument for using a simpler approach,
based on a timeline with the main ship-design steps, and
using this to guide the actors involved in the process. As
shown in Figure 1, a simple timeline would consist of six
steps, including both the upstream (business-case
development) and downstream (ship-building, operation
and decommissioning) steps that must inform the main
design activity (the design of the ship itself).

These six steps are detailed below, and are linked to
existing practices, presenting the primary criticisms
found in the literature:


1. The need for a ship: at this stage, the ship does
not yet have a reason to exist; the decision to
initiate a ship design process is purely a
business decision, strongly influenced by the
current and forecasted market situations.
Building up a good business case is crucial at
this point, yet very few published processes
have begun with this step, as shown in [6].
2. Defining the ship design specifications: most
published processes have begun at this stage.
The most common method is perhaps the
requirement elucidation, formalised by
Andrews [8] in the practice of designing
warships. It demands to be jointly undertaken by
the requirements owner and the preliminary ship
designer, in order to balance what the customer
wants and needs versus what the customer can
afford. Per Olaf Brett from Ulstein added that
the expectations of all stakeholders must be
accounted for, pointing out that the needs of the
customer are frequently not exactly the same as
the customers customer (e.g. a cargo owner)
[9]. Research by DeNucci on Knowledge
Capture[10] with the development of a visual
interface as a support for dialogue between the
stakeholders would prove useful in this step;
however, it is not known how widespread is this
interface in the industry. In Section 4.1 we
propose a low-tech tool that may also support
this dialogue. Concept development and
exploration, as described by van Bruinessen et
al. [11], is a way of exploring the ships design
space at an early stage. However, this
exploration is based on a fixed system of
components and requirements, hence preventing
the find of alternative or unknown designs.
3. Designing the ship: the historical design spiral
method [12] is both the most commonly used,
and the most commonly criticised method. The
main criticism is that it is a good model for the
detailed engineering phase, after the design
choices are made: this model easily locks the
naval architect to his first assumption and he
will patch and repair this first and only design
concept rather than generate alternatives[13].
System engineering is more recent and has
gained traction in the industry. The main
criticism (from the same previously cited
author) is that by cutting the design problem
into blocks (systems, sub-systems, sub-sub
systems, etc) innovative solutions can only
happen inside, and not in between, the blocks,
which severely limits the chances of obtaining
an innovative design overall [13]. This
illustrates that it is crucial to include what
occurs at the interfaces between different actors
and different steps in the design process, and
that supporting the dialogue between different
experts from different disciplines is a need that
must be covered by the design process to bring
local innovative solutions up to the overall
design solution. Formal design optimisation,
facilitated by an increase in computing capacity,
is attempting to address this problem in a
horizontal, or holistic, way. A multi-objective
optimisation problem is defined, and it is
supposed that the solution satisfies a wide set of
transverse requirements [14]. However, the
usability threshold for this method is very high
(both in terms of hardware and software), and it
can only provide solutions to requirements that
can be mathematically formalised. Soft
aspects of design, such as the confidence of the
owner that the ship will satisfy their
requirements are difficult to integrate in this
process. Experience at DNV GL in facilitating
design processes shows that the selected ship
design is most frequently not necessarily the
design with the best scores, but rather the
design that all the actors like best.
4. Building the ship: at this stage, the main design
is specified in a comprehensive design
specification, but a great deal of detailed design
remains to be done. The quality of the detailed
design and the quality of the execution of this
design in terms of, for example, steel
workmanship is absolutely crucial to the quality
of the delivered ship. Accompanying the design
Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
in its transformation from a purely
analogue/digital form (drawings and 3D
models) into a physical form (steel structure)
should also be part of the designers job. This is
known as design for construction and has
been documented in Bertram [15] and Lamb
[16], for example, with a particular focus on
what hull shapes can actually be built, and at
what cost. Experience at DNV GL shows that
the same design specification can produce 10
ships with very different performances in terms
of fuel efficiency, and research is ongoing to
provide support to shipyard, class and owners in
identifying areas of attention for construction, as
well as construction tolerances [17]. For
example, number, position and thickness of
weldings in the bow area, positioning of the
bilge keel, orientation of the bow thruster grids,
anodes, rudder alignment, etc. The
implementation of such added precautions again
must cater for the resources and limitations of
each actor involved in the process: how to
communicate the effect of local turbulences
generated by a weld that is 5mm too thick to a
steel welder who has no background in
hydrodynamics? How to communicate the need
to grind down this weld to the steel welders
manager, who is focused on keeping the project
on schedule?
5. Ship in operation: most published methods
agree that the ship should be designed for a
specific operation, and that data from past or
future operations are fundamental in the
process. This is especially true of formal design
optimisation methods, where the ships
operating profile is a constraint on the
optimisation problem [14]. It would be
interesting to see how many designers follow
their design in operation, to assess whether they
perform according to specifications, and include
this information in their next design. This
requires having good systems in place (both
procedures and technology) to measure the
performance of the ship in operation, and
competence in data-mining to extract
meaningful data from the large quantities
produced, day after day of operation. Closing
the loop from operation back to design is highly
challenging; for example, it would require
obtaining the insight of the navigating crew,
which is not a common practice in ship design.
6. Decommissioning: this step has not yet been
studied. There are most likely many possible
improvements to be made to the individual
experiences of the actors involved in this
process.




3.2 COMPUTER-AIDED SHIP DESIGN
Computer-aided ship design (CASD) is the major tool
used in ship design. It is powerful in accelerating the
design process by optimising the execution and
coordination of successive engineering tasks, and
assembling them into an automated decision-making
process. As such, it is not a tool that is very well suited to
a design space exploration, and early movers and
adopters of CASD are realising that caution is still due
against blind dependence on calculated data (). We
must continue to seek the proper balance between man
and machine [18], and that CASD should include new
developments that both foster insight and creativity,
rather than just provide faster and more detailed
numeric analysis[19].
As a result, CASD developers are attempting to allow for
multidisciplinary design space exploration with an
improved user experience [20]: CD-Adapcos Starccm+
version 8.06 includes a Simulation Assistant, which is
an interactive user interface that allows users to
reproduce best practices and deploy them across the
whole organization, ensuring repeatability of processes
and enforcing consistency of results. Dassaults
Solidworks 2014 has been developed to allow its users
to transfer their creative ideas from design sketches and
images into 3D models faster than before, while
expanding the set of design tools that allow them to
spread out into other markets.

The tools usability, that is, the capacity of the user to
take advantage of a given tool for a given task, is the
decisive factor, whereas the initial ambition of CASD is
to aid the designer. In a previously cited paper [6],
Tore Ulstein and Per Olaf Brett asked: Do design
software tools make a difference? It is also interesting to
notice that with now a continual introduction of different
supporting ship design analysis tools, suites of
complimentary software and related applications over a
30 year period, this development has led to an even
greater fragmentation and partition of the ship design
process. So many complex interfaces of these software
tools have been generated without necessarily bringing
more true understanding to the subject of effective ship
design and new building execution. It might seem that for
every new software system being brought to the work
desks of the designers, he or she is up against an almost
incomprehensible challenge to keep track, control and
see the interactive influences the various good intended
analysis tools produce, individually, and as integrated
back to back calculating machines. () Experience at
Ulstein indicates that problems of incompatibility and an
over-complex situation in overseeing the consequences
and implications of setting the constraints and boundary
conditions of imperfect input and output data might have
overshadowed the gains. () [It] has so far perhaps
added more uncertainty and complexity to the task at
hand, than it has improved the situation. [We did see
benefits] but here the complexity and lack of human
capacity and capability to handle all the variables and
Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
their influences within a meaningful context for everyday
decision-making is perhaps not as could be hoped for.

3.4 SIMULATION AND VISUALISATION
TOOLS

Simulation tools are moving towards the early phase of
the design process, and, as such, provide a great way to
rapid-prototype how well a ship can perform a given
mission (the most basic of these being to reach a given
speed using a given power output). However, such tools
are only used by the happy few because of their cost
(both hardware and software) and their complexity. The
capacity to rapid-prototype a ship for a given mission
enables the designer to quickly explore the design space,
by changing the ships mission; this is common practice
in formal design optimisation, where constraints are
changed or softened to push the boundaries of the design
space exploration. Blind exploration of the design
space would be too time-consuming and counter-
productive (generating non valid designs), so research
into using the insight and knowledge of experienced
designers with regard to the design optimisation loop has
been initiated [21]. After only a few iterations of the
optimisation loop (which would typically produce
several hundred different valid designs), the designer is
asked to select the designs that seem most interesting,
and the optimisation is refined in that direction. The
bottleneck in this process is the interaction between the
designer and the optimisation system: how to clearly
present say 100 different designs that usually have only
small differences between them? What information
should be made available to the designer at that stage? Is
the same information made available from one designer
to another? Here again, the perspective of the user is
fundamental. In Section 4.4 we present several ideas to
begin addressing these questions.

4. SKETCHING FUTURE PROCESSES AND
TOOLS FOR SHIP DESIGN

After 50 years of experience with CASD, Nowacki
urged both the designers and the CASD developers to
regard ship design as a learning experience and the
design system as a learning tool, highlighting the need
to improve feedback of intermediate and final results
and apply simulation and visualization to illustrate
cause of design effects[18]. In the sections below, we
make several proposals in this direction.

4.1 EXPLORING ACTORS INTERACTIONS ON
A TIMELINE

At the very early phases of design (steps 1 and 2
described in section 3.1), also called the fuzzy front
end, the actors must address numerous uncertainties in
terms of how the different pieces of the design puzzle
interact with each other. For example, which shipyard to
approach, and how to approach it? Should design
consultants be involved in the process, with the hope of
landing a better design, but with an immediate added cost
to the process? To explore these interactions, we propose
a type of strategy board game, in which the most
important actors and design steps are modelled, the goal
being to visualise different strategies, and include
different actors and their implications in the process.
Figure 3 shows a mock-up of how this board game could
look, as used on a white board, which is a common
feature in most meeting rooms where such decisions are
usually made (touch-point). It could also be used on a
table, like a traditional board game played among
friends. This tool has the advantage of being very easy to
use (no technology required), it is portable, modular and
interactive, and it is easily integrated with the simple
spreadsheets commonly used by ship designers in early
assessments of the merits (for instance cost-benefit) of
different design decisions.

Figure 3: mock-up of a strategy board game with the goal
of exploring fundamental questions early in the design
process: where are we now, who is involved, how can we
work together, what happens next and how does this link
to the other steps? (This figure is reproduced in larger
format at the end of the article.)

4.2 DESIGNING FOR TOUCH-POINTS:
GENERAL ARRANGEMENT DRAWING

As explained in section 2.1.b, touch-points are where
actors meet (physically or not) to make decisions. Future
research will assess which touch-points are most
common in design processes, and how to design for
these, so that they can facilitate decision-making. During
the interviews carried out for this preliminary research,
one interviewee remarked that when talking about
design, at some point a ship drawing has to be put on the
table to have a constructive discussion [22]. Therefore,
one proposition we are making is to use a General
Arrangement (GA) drawing as a touch-point, because, by
nature, a GA drawing reflects the general arrangement of
a ship, which significantly impacts overall
characteristics, but research into and use of modern
computer methods in developing and exploring general
arrangements in preliminary ship design has lagged
behind other fields such as hydrodynamics[23]. In this
sense, a GA drawing is a map of a territory, displaying
fundamental information on the basic elements of the
Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
ship (hull shape, machinery and steering, bridge systems,
cargo holds layout) that experts from different disciplines
can use to explain their respective roles, and assess how
they can interact together; this is why the proposed
strategy board game in Figure 3 resembles a GA
drawing. In addition, a GA drawing provides traceability
information: the date of the drawing, its author, who
approved it and when. Finally, it is again a low-tech
solution (2D paper drawing) very commonly used by
designers, and all the other actors throughout the entire
life of the ship. One could think of using a GA drawing
as a template for communicating the advancement of the
design, by superimposing the different iterations of the
design on top of each other, with the ability to go back
and forth in time, so that the full design process can be
documented (e.g. in a time-lapse fashion), and design
variations can be ordered in branches when it comes to
making a decision to depart from a standard design to use
a more customised design, which is a highly strategic
question both for the future owner of the ship and the
designer [21, 24]. Finally, research exists describing the
reconstruction of a 3D model from 2D drawings, using
the STEP protocol [25], which allows a transition to the
detailed design phase.

4.3 A GENERIC SHIP MODEL

Is there a simple ship model that can contain all the
information necessary to describe the status of a ship,
from a very abstract object (step 1: Need for a ship?) to a
very complex, operational object (steps 4-5: building and
operation) formed of up to a million pieces [26], ending
up as an inert steel structure with hazardous material
(step 6: Decommissioning)?

Parametric ship models are now commonly used, in
design optimisation, for example [14], to encapsulate
mostly geometric and structural information, such as the
3D shape of a hull (the position of each individual
surface point) into a few parameters (from individual
points to characteristic lines, to defining surfaces).
Product Lifecycle Models (PLM) are more
comprehensive, adding information regarding systems on
board, and, most importantly, adding the dimension of
time, enabling concurrent engineering at any step of the
process [27]. However, the use of PLM models requires a
very complex software infrastructure, and is primarily
used for navy applications (design of warships); only a
few shipyards are using them. Something simpler, with a
radically different architecture, is needed. As a vision, we
propose an architecture similar to Google Earth, where
the fundamental layer is a 3D shape (a globe) on top of
which any type of information (pictures, videos, sounds,
user comments, measured or predicted data [28]) can be
layered by geo-referencing. In addition to space, the
dimension of time can be added in the new Google Earth
Engine. In our vision, we see the ship as the fundamental
3D-shaped layer, with the possibility of geo-referencing
different hull-shape variations or cargo hold
arrangements at the design stage, and including
observations from, for example, hull inspection surveys
during the operation stage. The ambition is to develop a
layer-by-layer increment in the functionality and uses of
such a generic ship model, again inspired by how
Google Earth and Google Maps have evolved throughout
the years, in order to control the development costs and
ensure that this tool has the functionality and interactivity
required by the users.

4.4 A DESIGN SIMULATOR

Finally, we conclude this section on sketching future
tools for ship design with the (grand!) vision of a design
simulator. This vision has emerged from the research of
UCD designers from AHO, who are involved in re-
designing the bridge of an offshore supply vessel [1, 29].
As UCD designers must design in context, that is,
conduct their design research in the environment for
which they are designing, as much as possible [30], a
number of field trips to offshore supply vessels have
been carried out (totalling 2000 hours of immersion in
offshore vessel bridges), and many hours have also been
spent in bridge simulators. The UCD designers then built
a mock-up of a ship bridge in their lab, to allow direct
testing of their ideas (a new type of information display,
haptic and vocal control; three patents pending), in
context, and very quickly reach a proof-of-concept. The
lab is shown in Figure 4, below.


Figure 4: design research lab at AHO bridge mock-up

Using this research approach in problematic ship design,
the vision is to build on the Generic Ship Model and
enable the visualisation of real-time design changes, with
regard to the overall performance and feel of the ship. A
first step in this direction has been made at AHO, with
the development of the simulated scenarios facilitation
method, which uses game engines as a real-time,
interactive, realistic display to support the discussion
between different specialists [2]. The user basically
constructs a scene with the elements required to fuel a
discussion between experts, and then folds this scene out
into different scenarios that can be reconfigured very
quickly, or instantly, by, for example, just changing the
Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
position of the virtual camera. For example a simulated
scenario was the event of a collision in the fjord of Oslo,
and the different participants played out the characters of
a helicopter pilot going to the rescue, the captains of the
colliding ships and even a passenger of the sinking cruise
ship, who had to swim to reach a life-raft. See Figures 5
and 6, below. This enabled the Norwegian Coastal
Authorities to test and review their contingency and
Search and Rescue plans, and to identify a number of
problems, as well as design on the spot procedures to
mitigate these problems.


Figure 5: Simulated emergency scenario in the fjord of
Oslo view from the passenger who had to jump into the
water to reach a life raft. [2]


Figure 6: same as above, but the perspective is changed
to that of the helicopter co-pilot.

In this case, the ship itself is not modified, but rather its
mission, so that the ship and its entire environment
(crew, passengers, coastal authorities, other ships in the
traffic lane) can be tested. The next step will be to create
an immersive environment, the Design simulator, for
the ship designer and all the experts from the different
disciplines to facilitate a discussion on design issues that
require their interaction, and speed-up the decision-
making.

5. DISCUSSION

There are three main areas for further research, outlined
below.

5.1 DESIGNING FOR EXISTING PROCESSES
AND TOOLS

Although interactive and immersion technologies are
becoming affordable and ubiquitous, development of
new tools takes time and is costly. Analysis of existing
processes and the current use of existing tools using a
service design perspective can lead to the development of
new methods or processes with low-technology, by
focusing on facilitating a smoother interaction between
the various actors involved in the different steps of the
design process. Identification of areas of intervention
can be achieved with another design methodology that
has been developed at AHO, called Systems Oriented
Design where the goal is 1. To describe an existing
situation in its full complexity (how is a specific type of
ship designed?) 2. To zoom into the areas where little is
known, or where most problems are identified 3. To
isolate this area, or areas, and redefine a bounded, sub-
problem [3]. In a way, this is similar to a system
engineering approach, with the difference being that the
solutions to the sub-problem do not necessarily need to
be fixed with a technological solution, and the identified
problem may not be purely technical, but rather a
management or communication problem, as evoked in
Section 2.2, and with initial proposals in Sections 4.1 and
4.2.

5.2 DESIGNING FOR FUTURE PROCESSES AND
TOOLS

At the same time, we believe it is extremely important to
keep up with technological developments, in order to fuel
the creation of new ideas. Relevant technologies include:
-Cloud or Sky computing, enabling access to large sets of
data and performing computation tasks from any
location[31].
-Advanced simulation with multi-physics simulation,
blending structural, hydrodynamic, thermodynamic and
even economic/financial analysis. For example, DNV GL
has developed a machinery simulator that can simulate
the operation (including CAPEX and OPEX for different
maintenance strategies) of most common systems on
board a ship (Engine, Turbocharger, all types of pumps
and compressors) in real-time[32].
-Real-time, realistic visualisation, with game engines to
be soon incorporated into CASD systems to mimic the
workflow of video games or digital movies: design,
rendering, testing, redesign (and prototyping with 3D
printers) are conducted in the same interface, with no
time interruption and full control over the level of details
of the designed object [33].
-Multi modular interfaces, which mix gesture and vocal
control with haptic feedback, and can all be connected to
the cloud, to fully engage the designer in its
environment: Oculus rift, Microsoft Kinect, Leap and
many more.

5.3 ENABLING A SERVICE DESIGN
PERSPECTIVE

What can this new perspective enable, and how do we
get there? We must repeat that technology alone will not
Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
change anything if it is not developed for specific uses,
with a high degree of usability. Technology uptake is
particularly slow in the maritime business for many
reasons [26], one being the lack of concrete, tailor-made,
cost-effective applications of new technology, which
occurs when user needs are not properly understood.
What we seek are technology-enhanced processes, which
put the user in the centre of the process, and use
technology to assist the user in communicating needs, as
schematically shown in Figure 7, below.

Figure 7: the user is at the centre of the process, and
technology helps different users work together. (This
figure is reproduced in larger format at the end of the
article.)

Such design-driven innovation is now financially
supported in Norway (jointly by the Norwegian Research
and Design councils), and we believe it can enable the
service design perspective of ship design outlined in this
paper by facilitating the rapid prototyping of new
services and products supporting the ship design process
of the future: an inclusive, holistic, user-centered
process, which focuses on people first, and technology
second.

6. CONCLUSION

Our main argument is, in short, that the vision of the
future of shipping or the ship of the future will not
happen without first examining the design process of
the future. UCD should play a fundamental role in this
direction, and is now featured in the official agenda of
the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as a
strategic method of developing future tools for the
maritime industry, such as E-navigation [34]. UCD is
also used in the offshore oil and gas industry, as a main
innovation driver for integrated operations management.

Therefore, when Tor Svensen, CEO of DNV GL
Maritime, shares his vision of the future of shipping with
the maritime industry [35] and urges that industry to
learn to think about their business and operation in new
ways, when he acknowledges the impact that the
convergence of real time data transmission, high
computing capacity, mathematical modelling
capabilities, remote control, sensors and miniaturization
will have on the shape of the industry and when he urges
the maritime industry to draw lessons from the offshore
industry and to increase early testing capacity, we
applaud, and believe that UCD is the way to go. We are
hoping to demonstrate this in the coming years with
further research into this new perspective on ship design.

7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank their respective
colleagues at DNV GL and AHO for fruitful discussions,
as well as Svein Gunnar Kjde, Adrian Paulsen and Paal
Holter for great inspiration, and Ron Kim, Per-Johan
Sandlund and Carl-Fredrik Rehn for their preliminary
research and most of the illustrations included in this
paper.

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9. AUTHORS BIOGRAPHIES

Etienne Gernez currently holds the position of project
engineer at DNV GL Maritime Advisory. He is
responsible for facilitating ship design and operation
towards greener, safer and smarter practices. His
previous experience includes student supervision at
AHO, T.U Delft, T.U Eindhoven, Mines X Paris,
Stanford University and open innovation projects for the
exploration and conservation of the environment (Protei,
Ocean Collaboration Platform).

Kjetil Nordby currently holds the position of Associate
Professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.
Nordby is the project manager of the Ulstein Bridge
Concept design research project, and holds a Masters in
Interaction design from Ume University, and a PhD
from Oslo School of Architecture and Design.

Birger Sevaldson is the current chairman of OCEAN
Design Research Association and Professor at Oslo
School of Architecture and Design. He is an academic
and designer working in a broad field of design and
architecture. Sevaldson has been developing concepts in
design computing, digital creativity in design and
architecture since 1990, and has been lecturing and
teaching in Norway, Europe, Asia and the USA.


Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects

Figure 1: Simplified timeline showing actors, information flow and value creation.

Figure 2: A service design perspective on ship design.
Marine Design, 3-4 September 2014, Coventry, UK
2014: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects

Figure 3: mock-up of a strategy board game with the goal of exploring fundamental questions early in the design
process: where are we now, who is involved, how can we work together, what happens next and how does this link to
the other steps?

Figure 7: the user is at the centre of the process, and technology helps different users work together.

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