CTMA Pearl Harbor Initiative Leverages Digital Twin for Navy’s Next Steps in 20-year Shipyard Modernization Plan
Building on the promise afforded by CTMA for rapid development and deployment of commercial sustainment, readiness and reliability technologies, the Navy now has a digital twin of the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PHNSY & IMF) to support their 20-year, $21-billion initiative to modernize infrastructure at the nation’s four public shipyards.
Siemens Government Technologies led an industry team over the last 18 months, collecting vital information on submarine overhauls, to produce a digital twin of the “as-is” submarine overhaul process. The digital model reflects the actual sequence of repair processes, numbers of personnel and their associated trade skills, distance traveled to fulfill tasks, shipyard shop locations, equipment, transportation, and customary delays. With a baseline model, the Navy is now able to evaluate how updates to the shipyard infrastructure could increase throughput, productivity, and efficiency.
Optimization scenarios demonstrated to date include positioning new Water Front Production (WPF) facilities closer to the dry docks, along with associated personnel and processes to shorten a typical overhaul period. The digital twin of PHNSY & IMF enables the Navy’s PMS-555 team to simulate, visualize, analyze and optimize the size and location of major infrastructure investments prior to making any significant expenditures – a tremendous efficiency gain – that wouldn’t be possible without the visualization and experimentation power of the digital twin.
With valuable lessons now in hand, associated modeling and baseline development is already underway for the other three public shipyards with early promising results.