Abstract
These days, shipbuilding companies are making an effort to adopt the IT technology in order to improve the production efficiency. One such effort is to utilize a planning and scheduling system to predict the production cost in advance. In this system, assessing the welding material quantity is an important factor. Unfortunately, obtaining the welding material quantity in the early design stage is extremely difficult because the detailed production information, which is essential in deriving the cost associated with welding, is normally available at a later stage. This paper aims at developing a computerized program that produces an index to estimate the welding material quantity in the early design stage. By using only three-dimensional geometric information, the program analyzes the production process and estimates the welding material quantity at any design or production stage when no production information is available. The results can be used for the planning and scheduling system.
