Towards a Design Framework for Maritime Asset Servitization

Abstract

Risk is always inherent in maritime systems and consequently the safe, reliable and efficient operation of ships is crucial. Most ships, including their on-board systems, are one-off systems produced in very small series and consequently the design and development of reliability models is done in an ad-hoc manner. Therefore, the relative cost of developing reliability models and monitoring systems are higher than series produced systems, e.g. automotive or railway. Accordingly, the maritime industry is arguably lagging behind other industries when it comes to systems reliability analysis. In this context, this paper presents a modular design approach to increase standardization, reduce reliability modelling costs and develop robust monitoring systems. We explore how standardized components and subsystems can be designed independent from the ship and then assembled together to form the full vessel system. In parallel with the system design process, reliability modules are assembled together to form a complete system model. The final model estimates the probability of failure given a planned mission and potentially the health state of components and operational scenarios. This information could inform the decision-making team with mission-relevant information such as whether or not to sail in a given scenario with storm conditions. Central in this effort is the development of a standardized reliabilitymodel, which must be reusable across different ship designs. The methodology is tested on a real case study including the design and analysis of a permanent magnet thruster and its impact on the loss of propulsion for different ship designs.