Design 1 Reading

A Comprehensive Methodology for the Design of Ships (and Other Complex Systems)
Author(s): D. J. Andrews
Source: Proceedings: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 454, No. 1968
(Jan. 8, 1998), pp. 187-211
Published by: Royal Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/53229
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A comprehensive methodology for the design of
ships (and other complex systems)
BY D. J. ANDREWS
Naval Architecture Research Group, Department of Mechanical Engine

University College London, Torrington Place, London WCIE 7JE
Received 23 September 1996; revised 17 February 1997; accepted 2 July 1997
This paper takes as its starting point the paper published in the Ph
Soc. Lond. A in 1972 entitled 'A design methodology for ships and o
systems'. It was written before computers had made much impact on th
opposed to the analysis, of ships and similarly large complex constructio
have computers become synonymous with design practice, but there
a burgeoning of literature on all aspects of design, with it often being t
discipline in its own right. Taking ships in general, and the specific exam
ship design in particular, a comprehensive design methodology is pr
giving due regard to the importance of management oriented desig
the methodology also draws on both engineering and architecture b
of the design process. Particular attention is given to initial design s
most crucial phase in determining the overall configuration and because
importance with the current emphasis on concurrent engineering. The m
proposed is considered to be flexible not only in the scope of its potenti
cation across a wide range of innovative solutions but also because of its
architecturally derived synthesis. This methodology is contrasted with a
systems-engineering-based design approach, applicable to complex softw
design but crucially lacking the capability to readily cater for the hu
within the entity, which is always a significant concern in the design o
large as well as complex systems.
Keywords: naval ship design; preliminary design methodology;
concurrent engineering; building block synthesis;
comparison of architecture and engineering; functional description
1. Introduction
Nearly 25 years ago the Royal Society published in its Philosophical T

paper which, unusually for the Society, was on the theme of a design m
appropriate to complex multipurpose systems. It made particular refere
and other marine vehicles, appropriately so, as the authors were two pr
naval architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Mandel
somidis 1972). The authors justified the paper's essentially non-analytica
stating that computers could make only a small contribution to the met
the design of such complex systems, because of their perception in the
that computers essentially aided the designer in analysing the design
contributing to the design process itself.
Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A (1998) 454, 187-211 ? 1998 The Royal Society
Printed in Great Britain 187 T1X Paper
188 D. J. Andrews
In the intervening quarter century, not only has there been the well-known enor-
mous growth in the capability and the capacity of computers, but also an extraordi-
nary burgeoning of literature on all aspects of design. There would seem to be two
reasons for this latter outpouring. First, the great strides made in computer tech-
nology, both in hardware and software, have been applied to the computer aiding
of design in addition to the associated analytic aspects. Second, there is a growing
recognition of the vital importance of design, especially in the formative stages of
major projects, in determining the likely performance, quality, reliability and life
cycle costs of the end product being designed and manufactured.
This paper considers changes which have occurred in the environment in which
the design of physically large and complex systems is undertaken and how these
changes have influenced the associated design methodology. Since the experience of
the author is in the practice and teaching of naval ship design, the paper mainly uses
examples from naval ship design to illustrate his theme. Nevertheless, it is believed
that the issues addressed in this way have a wider relevance than just to naval ship
design. Furthermore, these issues also serve to indicate how it may be possible to
use the associated changes in design practice to improve the design methodology
appropriate to large and complex entities.
In making the case for a new approach to a comprehensive design methodology
for such entities, the author first seeks to explain why he considers that naval ship
design represents a reasonable paradigm for the purpose. The paper then considers
management-oriented design procedures which necessarily figure significantly in any
major large-scale project. This aspect is then contrasted with that of the particu-
lar process of ship design, from which an overall design methodology can be met,
drawing on both engineering and architecture-based descriptions of the design pro-
cess. This line of argument, in echoing Mandel & Christossomidis (1972), puts initial
design, as the most crucial design step, into a broader context. The consideration
of initial design which follows, commences with a statement of the design problem,
before looking at several possible approaches which are dependent on the level of
innovation necessary or selected for the design project. This step leads to a fully
integrated synthesis which is architectural in character and corresponds to the state-
ment of the design problem. The question as to whether a functional or a descriptive
breakdown of the design problem would be appropriate is then considered, together
with the applicability of a fully systems-engineering approach to the design of com-
plex entities. A major concern in that regard is the matter of the physical realization
of an entity, which is seen as significant in the design task of integration, bearing in
mind the contribution of human operators to the effectiveness of the total system.
The paper goes on to review what traditionally have been the downstream design
activities of detailed configuration and subsystem integration. The latter activity is
highlighted by the impact on large-scale design of recent developments such as con-
current engineering and logistic support analysis, including the current interest in
product models and strategic design (Tibbitts & Keane 1995). It is concluded that
a more comprehensive initial design methodology, as proposed, is necessary to take
full advantage of the potential of these new developments to improve the design of
large complex systems.
2. Ship design as a paradigm
It is the author's contention, which he shares with Mandel & Christossimidis

(1972), that ship design has many features in common with the design of other large
Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A (1998)
A comprehensive methodology for the design of ships 189
complex constructions; in consequence, it provides a useful paradigm when consider-

ing what should constitute an appropriate-both comprehensive and flexible-design
methodology, adapted to the opportunities which computer advances make available
to designers generally. In the author's experience, design of naval ships is dominated
by two characteristics which other complex systems can also display, namely:
(1) they do not have a single purpose which readily lends itself to resolution by
application of optimization techniques, but rather are multipurpose with an intricate
amalgam of sometimes conflicting requirements;
(2) the design process is correspondingly many faceted, not only in a technical
sense but also in the way in which technicalities can be interwoven with such diverse
matters as national, international, politico-economic, environmental, etc., consider-
ations.
While recognizing that naval ship design, naturally, has distinctive and thus atyp-
ical features, there is thought to be enough in the way of commonality with other
complex systems as to still justify it being regarded as a paradigm. On that basis
a generalized account is next given of the nature of the naval ship before going on
to indicate how the aspects described influence the factors which typically prevail in
the naval ship design process.
The main aspects which go to make a naval ship's nature are:
(1) the ability to operate in a wide variety of demanding environments, e.g. corro-
sive, dangerous, varying temperatures, wind and ice, impacts and effects of motion
and flexure;
(2) the size of the unit, i.e. the individual naval ship is an entity, which may be
quite large, and has to perform as a total military system;
(3) long endurance and self sufficiency, i.e. supports its own personnel, has prime
movers and is self maintained, carrying fuel, stores and spares;
(4) role flexibility: most naval vessels are intended to be multi-mission and be used
for many differing roles in peace and war;
(5) high level of complexity and employing diverse technologies; the complexity
stems from combining such extremes as state-of-the-art electronics and some rela-
tively basic domestic systems supporting the habitation needs of the crew;
(6) close interdependency and high level of integration of a myriad of subsystems
supporting each individual function;
(7) relatively small numbers are procured, (which means that procurement costs
are relatively high) with inherent long life; this leads to lack of prototyping and
relatively low initial development costs, independent of detailed design.
These features result in the following factors which characterize the process by
which naval ships are designed:
(1) the design is essentially bespoke for each new class of ship and hence the
customer/designer dialogue is of vital importance;
(2) identifying the judicious balance of requirements for a multi-mission, role-
flexible vessel can be difficult;
(3) owing to the difficulty in determining the requirements, there are many per-
formance issues and not all of these can be readily expressed explicitly;
(4) design takes place in a complex political environment which can have a major
bearing on the design outcome;
(5) the demands or constraints of cost and time, as outward manifestations of the
political environment, can seem all pervasive in the design process;
(6) the lack of a prototype means that the development of the design with the aim
190 D. J. Andrews
Table 1. Constraints in ship design-some typical examples
direct constraints constraints on the constraints originating

on the design design process from the design environment
minimize building time structure of the physical and natural

design organization environment
consider foreign relationship of the political climate

sales potential designer with the customer
reduce manpower past design (type ship) economic climate

on the ship data available
simplify production process specialization and training exact manner in which

in the shipyard of design team money is funded
comply with international state-of-the-art in need to comply with

rules existing or likely the various fields new laws (e.g. health
to come into force and safety during build)
computer facilities directly strategic and p
on tap and their limitations necessity to sp
round the shipyards
research facilities directly decision to redu

under the designer's control government r
idiosyncrasies, prejudices, collaboration with NATO

rivalries, personalities allies on equipment
of the design team
of minimizing risk can seem conservative, as there will have been no opportu
historically to reconsider the emergent design; hence the importance of initial de
(see later).
3. Management procedures
In considering what would be required in a new methodology for the design of large
and complex systems, it is instructive to draw a distinction between procedures that
have to be adopted to manage the process of design and ways of describing how
the design process actually occurs, whatever management approach is chosen. For a
product as complex as a ship there are, understandably, a large number of issues to
be addressed. Thus Wijnolst (1995) identifies some 40 attributes, both those internal
to the system and those external in the sense of their relation to the wider system
within which the ship operates. Alternatively, table 1 (taken from Andrews 1981
classifies the various constraints on the design both direct (explicit) and indirect
(implicit) which illustrate the complexity of the management task.
A basic feature of the management of the design of complex systems is the appli-
cation of formal procedures for the conduct of their design and procurement. These
procedures extend over considerable time in order to marshal the necessary resource
and to provide the necessary assurances to enable those resources to be secured,
together with the commitment from the wider organization beyond the immediate
design and project management team. Figure 1 shows the UK MoD's overall proce
dure for major defence projects. It is very similar to US Defense Department practic
AGREEMENT TO MINISTER MINISTER

PROJECT INVTATION AND AND
FORFS TREASURY TREASURY
ENDORESEMENT ENDORESEMENT ADMIRALTY

OFST(S) OFSR(S) BOARD
FOR FOR APROVAL FOR

NO DESIGN DESIGN APPOVAL TO INVITE APPROVAL
ENDORESEMENT APPROVAL APPROVAL OF THE CONTRACT TO
ti N It H t IAi t i t
CONCEPT CONCEPT FEASIBILITY DESIGN BUILD TENDERS DETAILED SHIP POST ACCEPTANCE
STUD DESIGN STUDIES DEFINITION CONTACT CONTRACT DESIGN & BUILD TEALS
/ DEFINITION/ NEGOTIATION
/ ASSESSMENT 3
1-3 YRS 1-2 YRS 1-3 YRS (PROCUREMENT 1YR 3-6 YRS 1 YR
SPECIFICATION) I
t
ORDER ACCEPTANCE OPERATIONAL
Figure 1. UK defence project programme struc
and shows how the major activities involved are s

stones made by government. The need for assuranc
the risks involved in any major complex project.
formally as: 'a function of both the probability o
its impact' (MoD 1989). Consequently, an importa
involves risk containment. To that end, key tasks a
cant risk areas and an ongoing assessment of the lik
selection of carefully judged contingencies to safeg
The use of systems-engineering techniques and
has led to a formalization of what were, historically
of major products. These stages, as indicated by fig
conceptual, feasibility and detailed design stages. Th
a rigid procedurally oriented approach, essential
enable, at the end of each stage, assurances to be
important risks have been identified and can be ma
ground a considerable emphasis has grown up stress
by every 'good project manager', on the grounds
way of proceeding. Thus, for example, in analysing
major projects, Morris & Hough (1987) identify 1
ranging from organizational and team issues to n
focus on risk, Carter et al. (1994) list 18 'state-of-th
niques' ranging from the 'milestone contract maste
It can be appreciated that this concentration on p
has the implication that the design process could
within the wider management of the project. Not o
is considered that the procedures and techniques can
for the conduct of the actual design task itself. Mo
management is of paramount importance to success
a 'necessary but not sufficient' contribution to the
The extent to which, at each major milestone, the
to concentrate attention on project management
192 D. J. Andrews
Table 2. Comparison of '-ilities' and '-ings' in strategic design (Huthwaite 1994)
-ilities -ings
reliability visible 'ings'

availability machining
maintainability moulding
manability (human factors)
function hidden 'ings'
producibility marketing
supportability inventorying
economic feasibility purchasing
social acceptability
issues was highlighted in the author's paper on the 'Management of warship

(Andrews 1993). The term 'the search for assurance' was coined to catch this
sis in the design process. The specific categories then listed were availability,
ity and maintainability (ARM), integrated logistic support (ILS), safety as
whole ship life cycle costing and risk assessment itself. In US naval ship acqu
there has been a move to regard these categories, depicted as '-ilities', (see tab
positive attributes of the design, and the '-ings' (see table 2) as characteristic
need to be minimized to save resources. In some quarters such measures a
to be essential to adopting strategic design (Huthwaite 1994), which is a p
feature of the move towards concurrent engineering. However, when conside
'search for assurance' in the 'Management of warship design', (Andrews 1
author questioned the justification for combining procedural concerns with t
on generic '-ilities', since their demands can divert the design team's attentio
the overall design aim and from the particular design drivers likely to be fun
to the essential design entity: the whole ship.
4. The ship design process

As a further step towards explaining the reasons for concern about undue emphasis
on procedures in naval ship design activities, it is helpful to look more closely at the
actual process of ship design. In seeking to depict the process of ship design simply,
naval architects have often resorted to the iconographic representation of the design
spiral, which was first proposed for ship structural design by Harvey-Evans (1959),
with Snaith & Parker (1972) giving a typical general ship design example. While this
model of the design process has been adopted more widely-Morris (1994) shows
four spiral variants out of his nine figures describing new models of a system life
cycle-figure 2 (taken from Andrews 1981) extends the spiral to show the effects
of the constraints in table 1. The latter representation avoids the closed, almost
mechanistic implication, of the two-dimensional spiral. Despite clear unease about
the descriptive adequacy (e.g. should it spiral inward or outward, the implied fixed
sequence, how are feedback and new inputs or processes shown), naval architects
have found it useful, if only to indicate the iterative nature of the design process and
the consequent dependence of each downstream 'spoke' on its predecessors.
Figure 2. The ship design spiral showing constraints.
To go further than the design spiral, as a representation of the ship design process
which essentially describes steps rather than the process itself, it is necessary to look
at the actual process performed by the designer. It has been argued (Andrews 1986)
that, essentially, the process of ship design consists, at a technical level, of three
fundamental and (currently) sequential subprocesses, namely:
(1) initial sizing, where a gross size is obtained;
(2) a parametric exploration, where principal dimensions and a hull form are
evolved;
(3) an architectural and engineering synthesis, which is progressively performed
within the constraints of the size and hull form previously determined.
The subprocess of initial sizing, and whether this can be made more comprehensive,
are addressed later, but first the nature of the overall design process will be considered
further.
The above description of the way in which a ship design evolves leaves open how
the designer initiates a new design and why the essential architectural synthesis,
using amongst other things the general arrangement drawing, is customarily left
until the overall size and shape have been effectively determined. The issue of how
designers initiate or generate new design concepts has been the focus of much early
research into design methods, typified by Jones (1970, 1980), and the use of tech-
niques such as brainstorming, synectics, etc. To a degree, an approach like that
described above, where the synthesis of the ship proper is delayed, was endorsed
by Mandel & Chryssostomidis (1972) in their figure 1, the 'exploratory phase flow
diagram'. Their thinking emphasized an objective exploration of the 'problem objec-
tive' with a 'macro-level' description of alternatives, which is sufficiently descriptive
only to refine what they called the 'first level subproblem objectives'. They proposed
that the most desirable alternative should be selected by the designer, drawing on
experience and judgement, rather than just a 'completely automated selection tech-
nique' as Mandel & Leopold (1966) had previously recommended, with an exponen-
tial random-search optimization approach. The issue of optimization is of course a
194 D. J. Andrews
general design matter, which has not lessened in importance over the intervening
years. Rather, it could be argued that it has become more sophisticated with subtler
techniques and a more computationally facile community (Ferguson 1993).
Since engineering synthesis is also left until later in the ship design process than
is desirable, the impact on the process of the technical features, when they come
to be addressed, also has to be taken into account. This is particularly important
because the technicalities can dominate the practice of naval architecture, somewhat
to the detriment of the practice of ship design itself. In order to succintly capture
the pertinent naval architectural issues in the design of ships, the term S5 has been
coined (Brown & Andrews 1980) to embrace the main issues of ship hydrodynamics,
structures and dynamics under the terms speed, seakeeping, stability, strength and
style. For a naval vessel there are also the highly significant military concerns of the
weapons, sensors and operational control, which are being increasingly integrated
into combat system design. This is a relatively new discipline which draws heavily
on systems engineering techniques and whose interface with a whole ship design
methodology is considered later in this paper. Related military issues of survivability
and signatures can be encompassed in consideration of ship damage stability and,
in part, in the choice of the style of the vessel. Although style is included in the
naval architectural S5 set of technical issues, it also interfaces with the architectural
synthesis and the associated major design choices of form and appearance, which are
addressed later.
5. Overall design methodology

From considerations of management procedures and the technical activities
entailed in the ship design process, it is possible to examine how designing such
complex systems relates to theories of design. These offer the prospect of a clearer
insight into creativity in design, particularly in the architectural part of the process.
Because of the veritable explosion in general design methodologies (see Broadbent
(1986) and journals such as 'Design Studies') and, in the field of marine technology,
through the introduction of the triannual International Marine Design Conferences
(IMDC 1982-1997), there is a host of potentially revealing perspectives to be con-
sidered in seeking a new approach to ship design methodology. Further, the new
methodology should also comprehend the facility now becoming widely available in
design organizations which enables designers to examine many more facets of the
project, at the initial sizing stage, using sophisticated computer graphics tools. If
wider descriptions of the design process are sought, there are two main approaches,
both of which have relevance to complex design and are compared in table 3.
Now, despite the fact that engineering-dominated entities like ships have many
engineering designed components which fit the former category, the overall ship
design problem is nevertheless closer to the architectural category. Broadbent
describes the latter not in terms of the classic description of design (i.e. analysis-
synthesis-evaluation), but rather by using the idea of conjectures and refutations,
thereby adapting to complex design the realist approach to the philosophy of science
(Popper 1963). Attractive though an architecture-oriented design model might seem,
not all of Broadbent's (1986) four 'categories of conjectures' nor all of his five 'refuta-
tion types' appear to be directly relevant to the ship design process. However, leaving
aside the major cultural and symbolic elements in architecture, which are generally
of minor relevance in ship design, the emphasis Broadbent places on aspects such
Table 3. Comparison of general design approaches
engineering design architectural design

(Hubka 1982) (Broadbent 1986)
mechanistic architectural
machine products complex design with human habitat/environment

mass produced components bespoke design and build
clear economic basis complex procurement process
as the social, psychological and environmental is entirely pertinent. These concerns

bring important insights which can be lacking in an, often, over mechanistic view
design which is characteristic of the engineering centred systems approach.
As regards the significance of the steps: initial sizing/parametric selection/arch-
itectural-engineering synthesis, mooted in the previous section on the ship desi
process, it should be realized that these steps are not simply initiated by the users'
needs, as is sometimes asserted in design papers. Such assertions can imply tha
a simple specification of requirements would be sufficient to commence design, but
there are two reasons why this may not be the case, as follows.
(1) For complex designs, requirements are rarely expressed in the form of an expli
it and coherent statement. For that reason the nature of the problem has been char
acterized as being 'wicked', in that determining the actual requirements is really th
major challenge in preliminary design (Rittel & Webber 1973).
(2) The manner in which an individual designer selects, creates or produces h
initial ideas of the overall design can have a significant bearing on the end product
While the matter of the dialogue that takes place between the user and the desig
er, in order to clarify the requirements, is fundamental in the formative stages of
initial design, as discussed in the next section, the nature of the designer's persona
'stamp' is also relevant to the overall design process. Two interesting accounts
design research are considered pertinent in this context:
(1) Daley's (1982) explanation of the aspects brought to design creation by th
individual designer, which she considers to be made up of three interlinked schema
namely those associated with the visual, the linguistic and that of values;
(2) Darke's (1979) research into how architects actually arrive at their solution
to design problems concluded that each designer had a 'key generator', used bot
to determine the overall pattern or configuration and to guide subsequent desi
evolution. This finding appears to be consistent with recorded views of prominent
naval ship designers (Brown 1983).
Accordingly, figure 3 takes the three steps of initial sizing, parametric selection
and synthesis and overlays both the user input and the Darke-Daley designer input
at each step. Figure 3 also indicates the feedbacks which are necessary when the sol
tion, obtained from the preceding step, has been shown to be inadequate. This more
descriptive representation is still incomplete, as it fails to emphasize the effects of
the multifarious constraints listed in the three categories shown in figure 2. Further
more, representation as a set of, at best, feedback loops is inadequate both for certain
design solutions (such as advanced hull forms) and also for a concurrent engineering
approach.
As regards this last concern, which is considered further in the next section, it
196 D. J. Andrews
Daley's Overlaps
A - Visual schema
B - Linguistic schema
C - Value schema
D -'Conscious' Propositional Knowledge -
strongly influneced by Design Constraints
Owners' Style of Task Subsequent Current Output

Form Selection
ofForm Analysis
Initiation Ship Design Directed Input
Ship Design
................ ......
Figure 3. The ship d
has to be said that any

the difficulty of adequ
by the designer before
seeks to depict that asp
designer's inputs (cf. fig
clearer expression, albeit
er, hopefully, conscious
determination and event
synthesis. A more detail
in figure 4 can be found
shown in figure 3, is of
comprehends both assum
6. Initial design
Different terms are used for the phase in which design activities start, and in the
interests of generality the term 'initial design' has been chosen to avoid the particular
procedural connotations which are associated with some customary usage. What has
come to be expected of this stage is that, since only a broad idea exists of what the
projected product is to do and how it might be configured to do it, it is natural
for initial expectations to be hardly more than ballparking in character. For ships,
for example, the aims could be just those of roughly sizing and costing based on
no more than a summary expression of the required performance. While recognizing
that in the past limitations on data storage capacity and speed of manipulation have
curtailed the amount of detail, which could be taken into account at the start of
initial design, together with the extent of investigation, it is considered that the new
design methodology proposed could and should use computer technology advances to
the full. This will enable designers to cater right from the start for an approach which
'sets off as it means to go on'. Thus the projected product will be configured using
computer graphics, initially just in outline and then in progressively more detail as
it is generated. (It is interesting that the term used until recently in this country
to describe the early design stages for naval ships was the 'sketch design', where
the sketch was a good deal more than just a hasty pictorial impression.) To put the
methodology in context it is relevant to look at how initial sizing and costing of ships
of various sorts have been carried out hitherto.
|~I NEEDS ANALYSIS l
?i FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
i" STYLE OF EMERGING SHIP DESIGN
PAYLOAD AND PLATFORM EQUIPMENTS
{ 'SGROSS SHIP CHARACTERISTICS (GSC) l

A
i-0 SELECTION OF SYNTHESIS MODEL TYPE
.. _^
A
q SELECTION OF BASIS FOR DECISION MAKING I
I SYNTHESIS OF SHIP GROSS SIZE
----- | EXPLORATION OF IMPACT OF PAYLOADI AND GSC
CRITERIA FOR ACCEPTANCE OF EMERGING DESIGN
ANALYSIS OF SIZE AND FORM CHARACTERISTICS |
4 ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING SYNTHESIS
EVALUAIONOFDESIGNTOCRITERIAOFACCEPTABILIT
EVOLUTION OF DESIGN
EVOLUTION BY BY
OF DESIGN ITERATIVE STAGES
ITERATIVE STAGES
[ ACCEPTABLE DESIGN SOLUTION I
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGN l
Figure 4. The ship design process steps.
For merchant ships Watson & Gilfillan (1977) describe how those initial ste
taken for two common categories of vessel: capacity carriers, like container
198 D. J. Andrews
ferries, whose size is determined by the volume of the cargo; and deadweight carriers,
like oil tankers and bulk ore carriers, whose size is determined by the weight of the car-
go. In both categories, appropriate allowances have to be made for the space/weight
of other components which contribute to size, such as propulsion machinery, crew,
ship services, fuel, structure, etc. All the components together are related to overall
size-the measure of which is total volume for capacity carriers and total weight
for deadweight carriers-by what are termed volume and weight payload factors,
respectively. Beyond the early opening design stages, when past practice gives some
guidance on those factors, the elements which go to make up the components have
to be expressed in algorithmic form or discrete equipment attributes, and the design
spiral (figure 2) indicates how the process iterates to a balance. As discussed later,
crude initial ship cost is derived from the weights of the various components; howev-
er, this is only justified if the vessel under design closely resembles its predecessors.
It will be recognized that this implies a limitation of the approach, which applies
also to the employment of volume and weight payload factors. The underlying fact
is that the practice customarily followed for merchant ship design is constrained by
available data, which has a relatively narrow range of applicability.
Historically, warship design has followed a rather similar route, typified by figure 5
and virtually unchanged in the transition from manual methods (Miller 1965) to
computerized methods (Hyde & Andrews 1992), though the majority of warships
are akin to capacity carriers, i.e. initially their size is determined by the volume of
the payload. Computerization of initial sizing has, at its best (e.g. CONDES (Hyde
& Andrews 1992)), left the choice of algorithms for weight and space components to
the individual designer, though, at worst, a black box approach has been used with
rigid and, on occasions, inappropriate algorithms. The latter aspect is demonstrated
by the annotations in figure 5, which show the assumptions implicit in building up
the component parts of weight and space, as well as the particular sources of the
data used. Provided the design team restricts the use of this sort of initial sizing to
exploring the evolving requirements-and hence are looking for overall trends rather
than absolute guarantees of feasibility or assurance-then for certain types of vessel
the approach can, with care, be a reasonably dependable way of proceeding. Where
it is liable to be unreliable is in its inability to deal with novelty, whether in the
requirements sought or in the type of configuration proposed for the solution, such
as an unconventional hull configuration.
When the sorts of solution likely to be derived from a complex set of requirements
for a warship are considered, it becomes apparent that there are several different
types of design process in the warship field. These are related to the degree of novel-
ty involved in a proposed solution and thereby to the applicability of the approach
indicated by figure 5. An indication of the spectrum of novelty which could occur
is shown in table 4, and ranges from a modification of an already built design (e.g.
the stretched or second batch of a class, like batch 2 Type 22 frigates); through
the simple sizing process outlined above for many merchant ships and applicable to
naval auxiliary vessels; to a more radical spatial or architectural synthesis pursued
at University College London (Andrews 1986); then to advanced configurations of
moderate speed, like the SWATH or Trimaran hull forms; and finally to extremely
advanced high speed vehicle types (Lavis et al. 1990). The latter vehicles are tech-
nologically revolutionary and their design process is more akin to those which are
used in aerospace practice, where the process would call for massive expenditure on
novel research, including prototypes and construction of a special production line
ASSUMPTIONS STEPS IN PROCESS SOURCES
Final ship design solution will Historical data on equipment or

not demand major equipment estimates by equipment
changes designers (weight, space,
services, complement)
The level of complement

machinery, services, structure, Based on past practice from
etc. will be in line with current payload volume
solutions
The degree of complexity,

structural philosophy, standards Measures of the density of the
of accommodation, upkeep, current ships of that category
margin philosophy implied
Conventional wisdom on form Power/speed/displacement plots

parameters, shafting, machinery Machinery data (volume, mass,
redundancy, etc. auxiliary power, complement)
Level of operation (endurance), Either overall figure displacement

maintenance philosophy, navy dependant or given by the sum
or company manning of complement for machinery,
philosophy and organizational payload and remainder
structure
Equipment data
Systems operating and upkeep Data book of historical demand
philosophies, redundancy, etc. related to ship size complement
with step changes for discrete
range of equipment
Applicability of hydrodynamics
data (triplet, methodical Endurance calculation (hydro-
series), usage of auxiliaries, dynamics data).
philosophy on tank allocation Hotel fuel consumption
(Stability, longitudinal balance, Fresh water, lub oil, voids
proximity)
Assumed structural design Sum of payload, mcy, services

outfit, structure
philosophy and material choice, Overall displacement
implied configuration solution and internal volume Margins on items, growth, 'Board'
(% access), design point, Superstructure volume as
proportion
stability philosophy
Reiterate until
Judgement of 'Satisfactory I
Balance' displacement and volume
balance
Figure 5. The warship initial sizing process.
facility. That amount of investment would seldom be conceivable or affordable for

the generality of ocean-going vessels, but such exotic vehicles can be regarded as
representing the extreme end of the spectrum of table 4.
For discussion purposes the focus of initial sizing will be taken to lie in the middle
range of table 4, i.e. simple/architectural synthesis and radical configurations of
200 D. J. Andrews
Table 4. Types of ship design
type example
second batch batch 2 Type 22 frigate

simple type ship many naval auxiliary vessels
evolutionary design a family of designs
simple synthesis UCL student designs
architectural synthesis UCL design studies
radical configuration SWATH, Trimaran
radical technology US navy surface effect ship
conventional ship technology. Then for naval ships the initial design problem can be
expressed as in the following.
(1) What is required is the process of defining the whole vessel from the perceived
functional needs, which are two-fold:
(i) a minimum set of maximum demands (weight, space, services, etc.) required
for the ship's operationally significant subsystems (e.g. sensors, weapons, command,
control, communications, aircraft and military payload, such as landing craft, vehi-
cles, troops and stores) which represent the opertional capabilities sought;
(ii) a minimum set of physical attributes required of the ship to support the oper-
ational missions (e.g. speed, endurance, survivability, seakeeping) which are largely
properties of the whole ship.
This amounts to a functional description of the input needs, which is made up of
three component parts: the sum of the direct physical demands in weight, space, ship
supporting services and personnel for each specific item of equipment contributing
to an operational characteristic (e.g. gun, sonar, helicopter, commando company);
the sum of the discrete elements of the gross ship characteristics demanded from
the whole ship by each specific operational characteristic (e.g. a level of seakeeping
performance to operate the helicopter); and the sum of the required operational char-
acteristics (these are strictly in terms of a warfare capability such as anti-submarine
warfare and centre on combat system features such as data flow and processing with
relatively little direct physical demands).
The resultant design description can be simply defined as the result of these
demands, but the physical (and data) description is not just the envelope of all
these demands. It clearly includes the physical attributes of the above equipment
and personnel as well as their demand for space and services, some of which will be
shared rather than just added numerically. The same applies to the required gross
ship characteristics where only the most demanding seakeeping requirements, for
example, have to be designed for; however, the summed physical demands, including
support personnel, call for extra gross ship characteristics of the ship. Thus the ship
design problem is not just a question of complying with the envelope of discrete
equipment demands but also that of achieving a whole ship with characteristics
(GSC) which both give specific operational performance attributes and enable the
entity as a whole to perform in terms of the S5 issues referred to earlier. It is this
extra whole ship dimension which introduces some subtlety into the synthesis of such
large complex systems.
Once initial synthesis is expressed in these terms, it can be seen that figure 3 is an
Linguistic
Schema
Wider Design
Environments Visual Schema tructures
Designer's 'Idiosyncratic' stamp

(Daley's model of creativity)
^~v^~~~ ~~~Conscious Primary

Generator Output
+ + of Concept including 'Spati
Directed input More Comprehensive and 'Styl
plus user input Integration
Feedback Process
Combined sensitivity of Input parameters

and standards in full parametric investigation
Figure 6. The fully integrated ship synthesis description.
inadequate representation because it inappropriately separates hul

exploration and the initial architectural synthesis from the siz
trast, figure 6 has been devised to illustrate what is considered to
ed synthesis. An earlier version of the approach suggested by thi
modifying the initial sizing sequence, summarized in figure 5, to o
tial deck plan was used to layout an arrangement of compartment
This demonstrated the configurational viability of an initial desig
ously been obtained by no more than a numerical balancing of
space available. The approach was undertaken for several friga
1987), but because it required use of default values of hull coeffic
ic, mid-section and slenderness coefficients) to be initially chosen
limited applicability beyond conventional frigate solutions. Not on
ed architectural synthesis inadequate for more clearly configurat
designs (such as aircraft carriers and amphibious ships), it was als
the more radical configurations suggested in table 4.
A considerable advance in the application of a spatial synthesis a
vehicle design has come about with the development of SUBCO
rine concept design system (Andrews et al. 1996), which is sum
and constitutes a topologically orientated computer-based model o
cess. In SUBCON the required components are defined by building
all the attributes necessary for placing demands on the whole ves
perceived gross ship characteristics held in a master building bloc
202 D. J. Andrews
Figure 7. Overview of the SUBCON building block based synthesis.
graphics the designer disposes the building blocks as he or she chooses and then
wraps round the blocks the necessary envelope, that is to say a pressure hull and
an external hydrodynamic skin in the case of a submarine. In the case of a surface
vessel, the envelope would be both the hydrodynamic underwater skin and the envi-
ronmental enclosure of the above water remainder of the main hull together with the
topside decks and superstructure, as has now been demonstrated (Andrews & Dicks
1997). Apart from the crucial process of balancing weight and space, the other anal-
yses shown in figure 7 are specific to submarines and are not, even then, all necessary
for initial synthesis. Which would apply depends on the needs of a particular design
and on the gross ship characteristics which are regarded as being most significant.
SUBCON is considered to provide a clear demonstration of how, within an overall
design process, an initial synthesis process can be devised which fulfils all the needs
generated by the descriptive model of figure 6.
7. Discussion of the building block synthesis

The question arises as to how the application of the spatial synthesis approach of
SUBCON-like processes can be managed through the whole of preliminary design,
when, particularly in the case of warships, interest focuses on operational research
and combat-system modelling. The building block approach to the initial synthesis
of a new vessel meets the intent that the description obtained should be primari-
ly architectural or configurational. This means that the gross sizing parameters of
weight and space are then outcomes of that configurational disposition. However, it
is the situation for current naval ship design that the numerical description follows
a work breakdown structure (WBS), which reflects the weight grouping categories
hitherto used in ship design, and are engineering descriptions rather than functional
attributes. Table 5, taken from Andrews et al. (1996), compares the old breakdown
hierarchy with the functional groupings adopted for SUBCON, namely, those of float-
move-fight/operational and services infrastructure. The latter approach has the dis-
tinct advantage that, in synthesizing a design using the building blocks, the specific
contribution of a block, including all its attributes, can be identified with one of the
major functions or a subsidiary function, such as anti-submarine or above-water war-
fare in the 'fight' category. The supporting services could have been assigned piece-
Table 5. Comparison of work breakdown structures
traditional weight groups functional breakdown
hull structure float
propulsion move
electrical services fight
control and communication infrastructure
ship services (e.g. accommodation, life support, logistics, services)

outfit and furnishing
armament and pyrotechnics
fixed ballast
variable load
meal to the three main functions, but because typically, electric power, for exa
supports all three categories, fragmentation in that way could have proved unn
sarily complex for initial design. The functional breakdown adopted does mean
the consequences of introducing supporting services which differ from existing
tice can be more readily comprehended and their advantages (or otherwise
readily assessed.
The functional basis chosen for the building block approach is similar to the
losophy used in software design in general and warship combat system design i
ticular. The latter approach has been comprehensively described by Baker
Essentially, production of a logical model of the combat system functions is de
from specific operational analysis models or scenarios describing particular enc
ters of the combat system, or an element of it, with external combat systems
aircraft, missiles or submarines). The use of scenarios in this way is not adopte
to build up the required subsystem capabilities, but also to provide a clear descr
of the data exchanges linking the various elements of equipment together and
the overarching command system. This approach is a major advantage in design
the command or combat management system, which is the operational hear
modern warship and incidentally has been the source of much of the procurem
risk in recent naval equipment programmes in the UK and elsewhere.
The emphasis on the functional data or information flow between the elemen
the combat system is considered to have had three adverse consequences reg
the manner in which ship design is perceived:
(1) data flow has come to be seen as the primary medium of design, particula
for system integration, and this has led to diminution of emphasis on the phy
demands (weight, space, services) which the combat elements place on the ship
whole;
(2) scenarios by their nature focus attention on top level weapon/sensor exchanges,
and so many of the whole warship or multirole aspects in naval operations are not
modelled and thus likely to be disregarded; furthermore only those exchanges which
are readily comprehended by such modelling are given much attention;
(3) the combat system design methodology tends to regard the other components
of work breakdown structure as simply an adjunct to the combat system in terms of
providing services (power, cooling, etc.) to the combat system elements, rather than
seeing the whole system as a composite float plus move and fight entity.
204 D. J. Andrews
To counter this rather narrow perspective of the design of a very complex entity, the
use of the building block based design methodology is considered to be more appro-
priate, as it provides a sufficiently information-rich basis for preliminary design pur-
poses. The building block attributes can, without difficulty, be expanded to include
both data exchange links and physical integration impacts. When judging the appli-
cability of a particular design approach to a major warship or other complex product
it is important to bear in mind the following considerations:
(1) such entities are unlikely to conform with the inevitably simplified assumptions
in the mathematical description of their operational scenarios;
(2) although the exchange of data between subsystems within an entity can be a
significant factor, it is by no means the only or the most important feature to be
represented in modelling the entity;
(3) the physical demands and the need to obey the laws of physics on a macro
scale are the primary determinants of the size and configuration of the entity;
(4) generally, a prototype of the whole entity is not produced before construction
or manufacture commences, and manufacture is characterized by large scale assembly
with existing, rather than wholly new, tooling (unlike aircraft manufacture);
(5) because of the scale of such entities, the human interfaces occur within them,
so that human considerations are very significant, not just as regards affording pro-
tection from the outside environment but also in creating an internal environment
within which social and life support needs are met.
These considerations constitute a strong case for undertaking a fully integrated
synthesis on the lines of figure 6 using the approach of the building block realization
of figure 7. However, it should be appreciated that there are many diverse issues
to be addressed, even at the preliminary design stage, and so the design process
entails taking stock of the inputs from a multitude of sources. Consequently, for
complex products with major cost and political implications, the preliminary design
stage would, it is held, be best treated as consisting of several overlapping phases,
as advocated by Andrews (1994) for a major naval vessel where three phases were
described, as follows.
(1) Concept exploration. Characterized by an entirely unconstrained exploration,
this commences with a very broad outline of the new warship. It can be thought
of as a way of considering the possible solution as lying in a solution space which,
at the simplest level, could have three 'dimensions' of packaging, technology and
capability. With that approach existing ships of a related type, or types, can be so
represented and often the current vessel(s) to be replaced located (broadly) centrally
in the possible solution space. The approach is capable of being both exploratory
and divergent, so that the design team would be able to explore and be informed by
possible good ideas.
(2) Concept studies. A phase which, while still investigatory, is more sharply
focused in order to study more closely the factors suggested by concept exploration
to be significant design drivers. The investigation can be carried out by synthesis on
the lines of figures 6 and 7 but also conducted at a discrete level, at which the three
major 'dimensions' can be separately considered without an overall initial (ship)
design. Andrews (1994) suggested that the three primary considerations for most
warship concept studies are:
(i) packaging or gross size determination (e.g. upper deck disposition or hangar,
dock or flight deck configuration);
(ii) main propulsion and power generation, particularly if novel solutions are to
be considered;
(iii) the combat suite, usually informed by preliminary thoughts on its major
components and on the logical model-based strategy.
Beyond these three considerations there may be other design drivers, which also
need early exploration and possibly separate studies to inform the final phase; possi-
ble candidates for design driving are: speed, seakeeping, endurance, signatures, sur-
vivability, complement, logistic considerations and style (e.g. such aspects as margin
philosophy, robustness, adaptability, austerity and standards).
(3) Concept design. The major preliminary design phase, in which the building
block approach is likely to be effective in producing a baseline design solution includ-
ing cost (though the first two phases can also provide invaluable initial insights and
guidance). In this third phase the significant activities from a design methodology
point of view are:
(i) performing a trade off analysis by means of incremental enhancements (and
sometimes decrements) to a baseline design solution, which is primarily undertaken
to refine understanding of the balance, coherence and affordability of the customer's
requirements;
(ii) investigating a range of material options to meet the likely recommended
requirements, in which not only is it important to consider technological develop-
ments (as previously in the concept exploration and studies phases), but also to
appreciate that this is the latest stage at which radical configurations and whole
vehicle technologies, indicated by the last two categories in table 4, can be intro-
duced.
8. Design downstream
Notwithstanding the benefits of the building block approach in producing a more
informed and information-rich preliminary design, the vast bulk of the design process,
in both time and design resources, currently takes place downstream of this stage.
Certainly, with the progressive synthesis summarized by figures 3 and 4, the detailed
component, subsystem and integration design tasks take place well downstream, with
progressively more separation of the design process into distinct design groups and
often single discipline activities. For a major warship some 2000 to 30 000 drawings
(Andrews 1993) have customarily been required to define the ship for construction. It
is apparent, in consequence, that coordination and maintenance of the overall design
intent, through this detailed evolution, constitutes essentially a design management
task in which reviews and demonstrations of aspects of assurance dominate. Although
modern computer-aided design and production (CADAP) systems foster a better
approach to definition, both for manufacturing and ensuring that the whole design is
thoroughly and effectively integrated, there remains an important question as to how
detailed the preliminary design must become if the process is to best meet concurrent
engineering intentions.
These can be summarized as including from the start of the design process:
(1) continuing interactive dialogue with the customer, to the extent of alliances
and partnerships;
(2) integration and, where beneficial, co-location or (with globalization) network-
ing (Tibbitts & Keane 1995; Butler 1995) of design, project management, support,
cost estimating, production, etc., teams;
(3) concurrency of design, manufacturing and support process;
(4) universal use of computer systems for managing data and information on all
aspects of those processes;
206 D. J. Andrews
(5) extensive use of computerized graphical representation, predominantly in three

dimensions.
The manner in which design control and integration has been customarily main-
tained in the downstream stages of a complex design process is indicated towards t
end of figure 4, namely, 'architectural and engineering synthesis'. For ships, the ove
all layout or 'general arrangement' is the primary mechanism for taking into accoun
the views of both specialist users and of subsystem and equipment designers, while
maintaining overall design cohesion. Thus the 'general arrangement' evolves throug
the critical early phases of the downstream design activities when, for examp
structural continuity and other overall ship-design considerations interface with t
evolving subsystems and major compartment layouts. The second significant way o
managing the evolving design is the weight breakdown in conjunction with, to a less
er extent, the space breakdown, which links back to the 'general arrangement'. Th
weight breakdown has always been regarded in ship design to be the more importa
parameter for the following two reasons.
(1) Concern with stability of the ship as a floating body, whether intact or dam
aged, has led to control of the overall weight and its general disposition, especially
vertically, being a major preoccupation throughout the life of the design. Fragmen
tation of the weight breakdown on the traditional lines of the first column of table
rather than the functional breakdown shown in the second, has led to contribution
to subelements of the design being allocated with distinct budgets which had to be
held if the overall design parameters, fixed at the end of a preliminary design, we
to be sustained.
(2) The usual basis for estimating the overall cost of the entity has been through
the weight breakdown, starting at the preliminary design stage, when major design
choices are made and cost estimating is necessarily done using relatively sparse weight
data. Specific major equipment items can have discrete costs assigned (e.g. gas tur-
bine engines or a radar or missile system), but the generality of the contents of th
ship will be described only in terms of system or subsystem gross weight, and even
when detailed design is underway the weight and the particular cost per tonne of
component elements still remain the primary basis for costing.
There are three current initiatives which are working to change the approach
to downstream design and, arguably, provide further justification for adoption of a
design methodology based on the building block approach shown in figures 6 and 7.
The three initiatives all enable the design process to be moved away from presently
prolonged time scales, necessitated by a gradually evolving design definition, and are
subsumed within the systematic approach of the concurrent engineering philosophy
(Bennett & Lamb 1996).
The first of the initiatives is that of integrated logistic support (ILS), which derives
from a clear recognition that, for a major asset like a warship, the through-life costs
to its owner are several times its purchase cost. In consequence, a design procedure
in which support considerations are left to late in the design timescale could result in
unnecessarily high ownership costs. If ILS considerations are therefore to become as
important as performance and initial cost considerations, it is necessary to introduce
these aspects into the formative stages of the design. This step requires logistic
support analysis (LSA) to be undertaken from the earliest stages of the design, in
order that trade off studies can comprehend through life cost consequences. This
in turn means that maintenance, availability, reliability and manpower cost aspects
have to be considered, alongside performance and initial cost, as measures of merit.
For the design process, LSA necessitates that ship services system configurations and
equipment selections be made on grounds other than just minimum weight, cost, and
possibly such aspects as survivability issues like zoning and redundancy. It follows
that a much more comprehensive definition is required in the preliminary stages,
which the building block approach can afford.
The second initiative is that of human factors, which is a broader concept than
that conveyed by the ship designer's traditional concern with ship's complement and
the accommodation provided for the personnel onboard the ship. Human factors is
an activity which deals with many of the human related aspects, such as ergonomic
design and the internal ship environment, already mentioned as a major reason why
a ship designer is concerned with the physical architecture created by his design.
Human factors have an intricate relationship with ILS since the largest element of
through-life cost is usually that directly attributable to the cost of the personnel to
operate the ship, i.e. the complement. Consequently, many trade-off studies undertak-
en using LSA, address the demands associated with the cost of maintenance arising
from the staff carried on board to undertake that maintenance. It is understandable
therefore that proposals should be made to drastically reduce the complement
ships through greater automation, e.g. the autonomic ship (Ditizio et al. 1995),
care has to be exercised in pursuing that quest because the total requirement f
the crew due to personnel-demanding evolutions, such as storing at sea and damag
control, can govern the complement even of a 'lean-manned design'.
The third initiative which has fostered the move to concurrent engineering deriv
from increasing emphasis on producibility, originating in the objective to reduce bu
cost and time. While means to achieve a realistically reduced complement would co
tribute to a smaller volume ship design and thereby to reduced initial ship cost, t
would not alone be sufficient for the purpose. Significant initial cost savings coul
be made if attention was concentrated on those aspects of equipment and system
installation which entail many man-hours in building the ship. Not only is there a
potential reward in tackling the areas or features leading to production difficulties,
but also earlier definition, particularly of distributed systems, could allow produc-
tion engineering attention to be focused on exploiting modern approaches like zoned
working and advanced outfitting of subassemblies and modules. However, proposals
of that sort require extensive, detailed and believable levels of definition, previously
only achievable for the early ships in a class at a relatively late stage in their build
programme. All these considerations have motivated the push to apply innovative
techniques or methodologies encompassed by terms such as concurrent engineering,
integrated product models, virtual shipyards and strategic design (Tibbitts & Keane
1995) and it is the contention of this paper that their succcess depends on a prelim-
inary design approach which is architecturally centred.
The foregoing aspects point to the conclusion that the downstream design process
for complex entities, including warships, is likely to overlap with the preliminary
design stage which itself will become increasingly sophisticated. To that end, the
methodology proposed in this paper, essentially for a building block based synthesis
as in figure 7, can be seen as a comprehensive methodology for the design of complex
entities as a whole.
It is accordingly contended that the building block approach is the ideal way of
fostering, for warship design purposes, an architecturally based definition in which, in
subsequent design loops, aspects such as: (i) distributed systems details; (ii) margin
philosophy; (iii) access; (iv) producibility; (v) topside and combat system integration;
208 D. J. Andrews
(vi) ILS, human factors and 'ilities' issues; can be readily addressed without having
to resort to distinctly different methodologies downstream.
More generally the design methodology advocated is regarded as being:
(1) philosophically represented by the picture of figure 6, with the comprehen-
sive synthesis informed by customer interaction augmented by the designer's key
generator and schema;
(2) descriptively represented by the example of the SUBCON process, summa-
rized in figure 7, and showing an adaptability with analytical elements introduced
progressively;
(3) organizationally, and in terms of the output, represented by figure 8, which
takes the work breakdown, functional or otherwise, and adds in the integrative man-
agement and design elements on the left-hand side, (namely, the management tasks,
design integration and ILS/human factors) which then feed across to the material
categories shown on the right to aid their integration into the whole.
9. General conclusions
It has been the author's aim to draw on his experience in the design
in suggesting what should be looked for in a new design methodology
the great benefits made available by advances in computer technology
graphics, and be capable of application to other large and complex
aware that his use of naval ship design as a paradigm for that purpose
in much attention being given to aspects and features which are parti
but believes that many of the issues and arguments addressed alon
parallels in other complex systems and so are of general importanc
been prepared as a succint way of presenting the considerations leadin
design methodology advocated in the paper, though it reveals its origi
ship context, in that it shows a combat systems component; howev
purposes that component could be any special capability to be pr
complete design.
Figure 8 specifically shows the link between the integrating and
gories of design tools, informed by the process of bringing togeth
architectural description; (iii) physical attributes (weight, power,
providing an indication as to how the various design and managem
project management; (ii) ship and engineering analysis; (iii) combat
(for the specific naval ship case); (iv) decision support; (v) overall synt
the whole process. What this final representation is considered to brin
within the various categories of design integration and engineering sub
there is a veritable host of crucial design issues which cannot be ad
ed in this paper since it is conceptual rather than about detailed pr
process outlined is also dependent on acceptance of the need for highl
fessional designers. The designers have to be cognisant with the projec
issues indicated in figure 8 and the requirements of regulatory authori
the crucial design tasks have to be reinforced by an integrated and ar
information-rich synthesis, and this is facilitated by the topological c
computer graphics.
What has been presented here is a far from simple methodology
been argued, is demanded by the difficulties of designing such complex
author's conviction that this broad design approach could and shou
-i
0
0I 3 Linguistic
Schema
Wider [. ,
0 Design value Value
p Environment Sche Structure
CO
Design Process Designers idiosyncratic stamp
Constraints (Daley's mode of creativity)
00
oo
FLo 54 y- Conscious Primary
Task Generator Output
)t including
Directed Input More "Spatial" and "Stylistic"
Plus Comprehensive Spati
OC)
user input tc Integration sp

r-t
crD
ILS MANAGEMENT DESIGN

I I
HULL& SHIP MAIN AUXILI
I
INTEGRATION
SIZE STRUCTURES SYSTEMS PROPULSION SY
g 3eneral Programme Environment
CONFIGURATION
Hull Heating & Primary AVCA
+ DATA FLOW I Structures Ventilation Machinery
0 O
Maintenance Costs iazards Superstructure Sea Water Reduction F
'C Systems Gearing &
Supply Management Arrangements Substructure Chilled Water Shafting H
e+e
Support Info Systems Systems Arrangem
? . Human Follow on Signatures Appendages NBCD & Intakes & Ai
Factors Ships Firefighting Exhaust
Share Procurement Electromagnetic Seatings Waste Disposal Propulsors
EF r 'acilities Considerations Systems Sys
RM Quality Design Finishings Fresh Water Machinery
Assurance Aids Systems Management
International Weatherdecks Aviation lnt Platform
Collaboration
Synthesis & Seamanship Support Management
Oq
Tools Accommodation Special Steer
l'acilities Gear P
Other Firefighti
Stores System
Commisariat Ballast
PROJECT Hydrodynam
ISSUES -Seakeepin
c-
e+
CD Manage -V,
Management Decision Analysis

Tools Design Tools
CD'
vi Tools
210 D. J. Andrews
beyond the warship environment to other complex systems is motivated and rein-
forced by the introduction of similar concurrent engineering measures in the new
initial design techniques being applied to offshore and other large-scale civil engi-
neering projects (Butler 1995).
Glossary
ARM Availability, reliability and maintainability
CADAP Computer aided design and production
CONDES Concept design UK MoD preliminary design system
GSC Gross ship characteristics
ILS Integrated logistic support
IMDC International Marine Design Conference:
triannual forum on marine design
LSA Logistic support analysis
MoD Ministry of Defence in UK
SR(S) Staff Requirement (Sea) (see figure 1),
i.e. operational requirement for naval vessel
ST(S) Staff Target (Sea) (see figure 1),
i.e. preliminary operational requirement
SWATH Small water plane area twin-hulled ship,
sometimes called semisubmerged catamaran,
i.e. twin hulled with deeply submerged hulls
S5 Speed, seakeeping, stability, strength and style main naval
architectural issues in ship design (Brown & Andrews 1980).
WBS Work breakdown structure
Whilst making clear that the views expressed are solely those of th
ularly like to acknowledge the extensive comments made by Professo
considerably refined the ideas encapsulated in this paper.
The figures used in this paper have been previously published by
Naval Architects in the various references detailed and permission fo
this paper is gratefully acknowledged.
References
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A Comprehensive Methodology for the Design of Ships (and Other Complex Systems)

Naval Architecture Research Group, Department of Mechanical Engine

Received 23 September 1996; revised 17 February 1997; accepted 2 July 1997

Nearly 25 years ago the Royal Society published in its Philosophical T

2. Ship design as a paradigm

It is the author's contention, which he shares with Mandel & Christossimidis

complex constructions; in consequence, it provides a useful paradigm when consider-

Table 1. Constraints in ship design-some typical examples

direct constraints constraints on the constraints originating

minimize building time structure of the physical and natural

consider foreign relationship of the political climate

reduce manpower past design (type ship) economic climate

simplify production process specialization and training exact manner in which

comply with international state-of-the-art in need to comply with

research facilities directly decision to redu

idiosyncrasies, prejudices, collaboration with NATO

AGREEMENT TO MINISTER MINISTER

ENDORESEMENT ENDORESEMENT ADMIRALTY

FOR FOR APROVAL FOR

Figure 1. UK defence project programme struc

and shows how the major activities involved are s

Table 2. Comparison of '-ilities' and '-ings' in strategic design (Huthwaite 1994)

reliability visible 'ings'

issues was highlighted in the author's paper on the 'Management of warship

4. The ship design process

Figure 2. The ship design spiral showing constraints.

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A (1998)

5. Overall design methodology

Table 3. Comparison of general design approaches

engineering design architectural design

machine products complex design with human habitat/environment

as the social, psychological and environmental is entirely pertinent. These concerns

Owners' Style of Task Subsequent Current Output

Figure 3. The ship d

has to be said that any

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A (1998)

|~I NEEDS ANALYSIS l

i" STYLE OF EMERGING SHIP DESIGN

PAYLOAD AND PLATFORM EQUIPMENTS

{ 'SGROSS SHIP CHARACTERISTICS (GSC) l

q SELECTION OF BASIS FOR DECISION MAKING I

I SYNTHESIS OF SHIP GROSS SIZE

----- | EXPLORATION OF IMPACT OF PAYLOADI AND GSC

CRITERIA FOR ACCEPTANCE OF EMERGING DESIGN

ANALYSIS OF SIZE AND FORM CHARACTERISTICS |

4 ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING SYNTHESIS

[ ACCEPTABLE DESIGN SOLUTION I

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGN l

Figure 4. The ship design process steps.

ASSUMPTIONS STEPS IN PROCESS SOURCES

Final ship design solution will Historical data on equipment or

The level of complement

The degree of complexity,

Conventional wisdom on form Power/speed/displacement plots

Level of operation (endurance), Either overall figure displacement

Assumed structural design Sum of payload, mcy, services

Figure 5. The warship initial sizing process.

facility. That amount of investment would seldom be conceivable or affordable for

Table 4. Types of ship design

second batch batch 2 Type 22 frigate

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A (1998)

Designer's 'Idiosyncratic' stamp

^~v^~~~ ~~~Conscious Primary

^~v^~ ~Conscious Primary