Some relationships between build strategy and shipbuilding time in European shipbuilding

The build strategy of a ship specifies what is to be produced how, when, where and with what resources. Although it has been emphasised to play an important role in determining shipbuilding time and cost, scientific research on build strategy is limited. In this study, we focus on three interrelated build strategic factors of particular importance in European shipbuilding: hull production offshoring, pre-erection outfitting and the overlap between engineering and production. The study investigates how each of these three factors relates to physical ship production time and to total ship delivery time from contract signing to delivery. We use multiple linear regression on data about European shipyards and the ships they have built, which were obtained from a questionnaire and ship databases. The sample consists of 76 specialised ships, predominantly offshore support vessels, fishing vessels, ferries and other non-cargo carrying vessels, built at 24 European yards. The results provide evidence that yards practicing hull production offshoring have shorter ship production and delivery times than yards building the hulls at their own premises, even though the practice of offshoring itself is likely to have an adverse effect on shipbuilding time. The study also found a significant relationship between the level of pre-erection outfitting and physical production time. On the other hand, overlapping engineering and production only seems to have a limited impact on the production and the delivery time. Several of our results challenge established thinking and provide new insights into the factors affecting production and delivery time in European shipbuilding.