INNOVATION IN SOFTWARE. THE COMPLEXITY OF THE CHANGES THAT INDUSTRY 4.0 IS DEMANDING

Abstract

Industry 4.0 has favoured the expansion of many technologies whose application boundaries are very diffuse. Although each technology can have very specific applications, when it is wanted to apply to Computer Aided Design, Manufacturing & Engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) System, they have to be implemented as a whole. The first CAD tools were developed during the middle part of the 20th century, and since then they are in the beginning of the design, but it manages many data that must be taken in advance for the further stages of the lifecycle of the product. Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality are closely related to the Digital Twin and interlaced with the Big Data, which are generated by CAD tools and all surrounding solutions, which applies some cloud/edge/fog computing to these data in a merged technology between finite state machines and Artificial Intelligence (AI) cognitive processes. To perform in an agile manner all these integrations requires a network which support different connection ways to add specific devices, i.e. Internet of Things (IoT), which can access to the data, creating and modifying them, in a different layer which affects to the basic information layer created by the CAD System in the shipyard. This network should be secured but at the same time open to allow distributed work, which must be tracked in such a way that records any modification of every working step done in an open, transparent, trusted and non-modifiable working method for all stakeholders involved in process, like: shipyard, engineering offices, classification society and ship owner. Results of the design should be easy integrated with future building ways like 3D printing, generating printing orders directly from the CAD model. All the above technologies are reviewed in this paper, as well as revisit the application of them in every shipbuilding phase, from design to manufacturing. An integrated Industry 4.0 CAD system should also be involved in operation and maintenance phases, i.e. it must cover all the vessel lifecycle end to end, from design to decommission.