Transformation towards a Smart Maintenance Factory: The Case of a Vessel Maintenance Depot

The conceptualization and framework of smart factories have been intensively studied in previous studies, and the extension to various business areas has been suggested as a future research direction. This paper proposes a method for extending the smart factory concept in the ship building phase to the ship servicing phase through actual examples. In order to expand the study, we identified the differences between manufacturing and maintenance. We proposed a smart transformation procedure, framework, and architecture of a smart maintenance factory. The transformation was a large-scale operation for the entire factory beyond simply applying a single process or specific technology. The transformations were presented through a vessel maintenance depot case and the effects of improvements were discussed.

Automated summary

The paper explores extending the concept of smart factories from the ship building phase to the ship servicing phase through real examples. It proposes a smart transformation procedure, framework, and architecture for a smart maintenance factory, emphasizing the differences between manufacturing and maintenance. The study presents the transformations through a vessel maintenance depot case and discusses the effects of improvements.