JSC Zelenodolsk Design Bureau, part of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation, designs compartments for marine vessels. Design approval by customers was conventionally a lengthy process—how long depended on the complexity of compartments, and their number. Full-scale physical models of packed compartments were constructed in dedicated mockup sections for customer inspection and approval, a process that consumed large investments of time and money.
ESI IC.IDO supported Zelenodolsk Design Bureau in improving the quality of their end product and project documentation. Time spent on corrections made in the final stage of the design process has been reduced, profitability has improved, and end customer value is enhanced. IC.IDO is what ESI Group characterizes as its “industrial-grade immersive VR solution” providing a “3D immersive product experience.”
“Built upon the most advanced Virtual Reality technologies and expertise,” the company says, “IC.IDO VR facilitates the decision-making process of globally operating interdisciplinary teams, by replacing the need for physical prototypes with an interactive digital mockup.” Key capabilities:
- Real-time physics simulation assures realistic behavior of virtual objects—reliable and proven.
- Immersive user interface lets users intuitively engage with their virtual product—no barriers.
- Extensive collaboration capabilities enable cooperation on the virtual model between remote sites—no borders.
- Powerful multi-CAD and multi-PDM support for quick process integration.
- Massive data visualization fluently uncovers the largest data sets.
ZDB case background
JSC Zelenodolsk Design Bureau (ZDB), founded in 1949, is part of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation. Today it specializes in developing projects for ships, boats and other marine vessels for both Russian and overseas markets, providing services for engineering design, construction support, modernization/upgrades, design assistance and consultation, and physical experiments and trials.
A key challenge is to gain customer approval for its designs of vessel compartments—a process that has traditionally required costly, time-consuming construction of physical mockups. As these projects require input from various groups and departments within the organization, from electrical engineering to ventilation, approval was often a lengthy process. This inspired the company to search for a software solution that would enable efficient, rapid, well-informed collective decision-making. One condition for choosing a VR solution was that any such solution had to work with ZDB’s CAD models developed in Aveva Marine without significant modification. Ultimately, the goal was to ensure that ZDB’s compartment designs fulfilled the engineering/construction requirements of complex marine development projects.
After seeing ESI IC.IDO at various marine industry exhibitions, ZDB investigated the software for its own needs. After detailed evaluation, ZDB concluded that IC.IDO fulfilled its requirements for virtual-reality prototypes that would help it greatly reduce the need for physical mockups in the design review process.
IC.IDO lets all teams iterate on a design at the same time
By implementing IC.IDO virtual reality software, all teams involved in the decision-making process are now able to iterate on a design at the same time. The organization has also improved the quality of its end product, as well as that of project plans and construction documents. “Implementation of the solution allows us to quickly and effectively decide on the complex construction tasks which require a collective approach. Lead time for approval has shortened significantly,” says S.I. Reshetov, Deputy Director General of Strategic Development for ZDB.
“We have considered various alternative systems and approaches to optimize the compartment acceptance process, including VR systems with game engines which provided very high-level graphics and visualization quality,” he adds. “However, they appeared to be unsuitable for the engineering and construction tasks to be performed. We have chosen ESI IC.IDO, which allows us to make effective decisions not only in the construction domain, but also with ergonomic studies.”
Today, Zelenodolsk Design Bureau reports it has successfully integrated IC.IDO into its customer approval process for vessel compartments designed in Aveva Marine.
