AUSTAL, one of the world's leading shipyards for high-speed vessels, is currently modernizing its IT landscape. After the Australian shipbuilder defined its PLM strategy and roadmap together with PROSTEP, the two partners launched a project to develop AUSTAL's digital enterprise platform based on PROSTEP's Integration platform OpenPDM in June 2021. The objective of the project is to achieve a seamless flow of information between the enterprise data management systems such as PDM/PLM, ERP, data warehouse (DWH) and PPS.
As part of its digital transformation, AUSTAL had already implemented a new ERP system and started improving its existing PDM functions. Therefore, the development of a traceable and robust connection between the different systems was merely the logical next step in the context of the digitalization activities. The Australian shipbuilding experts were looking for a suitable solution that would enable end-to-end data storage across company boundaries, IT systems and domains, and which would provide appropriate support for secure and status-based data transfer.
The OpenPDM integration platform with its marine and offshore-specific extension, OpenPDM SHIP, addresses these requirements and also offers integrated PLM semantics that have been optimized for shipyard processes. It is crucial that AUSTAL has a scalable and robust integration solution that can be operated and maintained by its own IT department. This is why the company decided to use OpenPDM as the basis for developing its digital enterprise platform. The first step involved implementing use cases that address the exchange of data between product development and resource planning. This has the advantage for AUSTAL that the new capabilities can be used productively right away and that the company's IT experts can be trained for subsequent operation of the integration platform at an early stage.
PROSTEP will move implementation forward in close cooperation with AUSTAL throughout the entire project with the aim of specifying additional development steps in accordance with the shipyard's needs. Following successful integration of the PDM and ERP systems, implementing the transfer of drawings and BOMs as well as operation cutting work orders is being discussed. Thought is also being giving to integrating other systems – from business planning to payroll accounting – in the corporate platform.
Andrew Malcolm, chief digital officer (CDO) at AUSTAL, has the following to say: "With OpenPDM, we have found an integration solution that meets our needs as they stand today and will allow us to gradually scale up or down as appropriate and adapt to future requirements. This means that we are equipped to deal for the challenges that lie ahead and are laying the foundation for successful digital transformation at AUSTAL.”
