Tribon Solutions News

The Society of Maritime Industries, the umbrella organization of equipment and services in all areas of the maritime industry in United Kingdom and Tribon Solutions announced a co-operation agreement. The co-operation will provide the members of the Society of Maritime Solutions with a framework of activities to further strengthen their communication with and presence at shipyards worldwide by participating in Tribon.com. Tribon.com is an Internet based service for the shipbuilding industry linking together shipyards, maritime equipment suppliers and ship owners in a comprehensive global network. Tribon.com centers around a database of shipbuilding components and equipment.

Scheduled for a September 2003 release, the next major revision of the 3-D product modeling software for shipbuilding and offshore platforms from Albacore Research Ltd., ShipConstructor2004, will include a full Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning module (HVAC). HVAC is a fully integrated member of the ShipConstructor suite of Structure, Automatic and Manual Nest, NC Code generation, Outfit, Pipe, Fairing, and Lofting tools. To facilitate automatic report generation, HVAC makes full use of ShipConstructor's SQL Server product database. As with all ShipConstructor modules, HVAC is a full 3-D modeling package; this reduces drafting errors and time-to-production. With ShipConstructor, HVAC ducts are full-featured AutoCAD entities.

From Thursday March 4, the Internet-based service Tribon.com is upgraded with release 8.0. Tribon.com incorporates a Global Database of shipbuilding components and equipment. Shipbuilders can access, download and integrate accurate product information directly into their design. The possibilities for communicating between shipyards and suppliers have been further enhanced by the addition of a new set of functions. Shipyard users can now easily contact the supplier regarding a particular product, requesting a confirmation of the validity of the data at the time when a download takes place.

AVEVA Group, has announced the proposed acquisition of Tribon Solutions AB. Since 1967, AVEVA, formerly known as Cadcentre, has been providing IT solutions and services to the process, power and offshore industries. A recent survey of all CAD designed facilities in the North Sea shows a large proportion of all Crude Oil production in that region is processed by facilities designed with AVEVA Solutions. Similar figures relate to the global power, petrochemical and pulp and paper industries. Marine design, specifically that of hulls and other floating structures, poses specific challenges and practices not seen in plant design or ship outfitting -- sectors in which AVEVA already has established strength.

The Society of Maritime Industries, the umbrella organization of equipment and services in all areas of the maritime industry in United Kingdom and Tribon Solutions today announced a co-operation agreement. The co-operation will provide the members of the Society of Maritime Solutions with a framework of activities to further strengthen their communication with and presence at shipyards worldwide by participating in Tribon.com. Tribon.com is an Internet based service for the shipbuilding industry linking together shipyards, maritime equipment suppliers and ship owners in a comprehensive global network. Tribon.com centers around a database of shipbuilding components and equipment.

Tribon Solutions announces that Tribon.com version 3.0, which will be available in January 2002, will bring new effective search functionalities and easily downloadable components through a new browser tree and component structure to further improve the interaction between ship designers and suppliers.

The Japanese classification society ClassNK and Tribon Solutions offer time savings in the early phases of ship design through a new software interface. As part of a program to facilitate cooperation between ship designers and classification societies through digital data transfer, the Japanese classification society ClassNK and software provider Tribon Solutions have developed a direct interface between the Tribon Shipbuilding system and ClassNK PrimeShip. This new capability offers efficient data transfer and cost reductions in the early ship design phases. As a result of this integrated process, ship designers will be able to examine multiple design alternatives in a shorter time allowing more detailed analysis of structural strength and steel weight.

Kockums Computer Systems is changing its name to Tribon Solutions and plans to launch a new international business concept this summer. Under its new name, the company's new concept will comprise all the design and production stages, as well as all sub-contractors involved in a shipbuilding project, which includes IT applications. This concept offers shipyards internationally with cost-effective solutions in the handling of this part of the logistic pattern. Specifically, Tribon will consist of the entire shipbuilding process offering shipyards sourcing of materials and services from a complete international supply platform. The company also plans on expanding its consulting staff in order to further efficiency to the processes within its customer companies.

The Peene-Werft in Wolgast, Germany, has chosen Nupas-Cadmatic software solution as their main CAD/CAE/CAM system. During an implementation project of about two months, the shipyard will implement Nupas-Cadmatic for the complete Hull structure, Piping, Machinery and Outfitting including special customizations for the yard's high-tech production facilities like profile cutting robots, automated pipe workshop, web panels and their in-house material management system. The first project - building the first of a series of heavy cargo vessels - commenced in the beginning of February 2000. A group of about 20 engineers have been trained in several disciplines of the Nupas-Cadmatic system.

Attuned to the liner shipping industry's unerring drive for economies of scale, classification society Lloyd's Register (LR) has developed a conceptual design of container vessel incorporating a 12,500-TEU capacity. Although some 55-60 percent greater in slot capacity than the biggest cellular vessels ordered to date, the envisaged Ultra Large Container Ship (ULCS) would be able to transit the Suez Canal and access key ports. LR considers that there are no insurmountable technical challenges to vessels of 12,500 TEU, and believes that it is only a matter of time before such tonnage makes its appearance in deep sea trade. The next five to 10 years could see the uptake of the envisaged new breed of behemoths by the container shipping industry.

Tribon Solutions has signed a $ 4.5 million, 3-year contract with Daewoo Heavy Industries to supply and implement the Next Generation of the current Tribon M1 product on Windows NT. This Tribon Mx Series development will lead to Tribon M2 and Tribon M3 systems. Tribon Mx Series development will be focused to greatly extend the Outfitting and Data Management functions in the current Tribon M1. Daewoo will contribute both requirements and partial financing for the Tribon Mx Series development. This contract is based on the already successful implementation of Tribon at Daewoo for commercial hull design and the complete use of both hull and outfitting functions at Daewoo Special Ships Division for in particular the Korean KDX1 Frigate and some recent orders for Passenger RoRo vessels.

The SMM exhibition in Hamburg has once again proven that it is the cradle of marine technology and the grand-daddy of all marine exhibitions. On display in 12 separate halls were more than 1,300 exhibitors from more than 50 countries, launching new products and discussing business with an estimated 37,000 visitors. More telling that sheer numbers, in this case, is the feeling of the exhibition and the ubiquitous marine technology theme. The quality of attendee and exhibitor is always high, but this edition of the bi-annual exhibition seemed especially charged due to the many positives currently running throughout the full spectrum of the maritime market.

The National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), has signed a five-year agreement to continue their use of the Tribon Shipbuilding System at the San Diego shipyard in California. NASSCO will use the Tribon system for the design and production of all of their naval and commercial ships. NASSCO implemented the Tribon Hull system in 1995 on the Sealift New Construction program for the U.S. Navy. In 1997 NASSCO implemented the entire Tribon system including, all hull and outfitting applications. The agreement includes a provision that a Tribon system will be installed at Bath Iron Works, which is also a member of the General Dynamics Corporation Marine Systems Group. Bath Iron Works is working with NASSCO on creating the detailed design of the U.S. Navy’s new T-AKE logistic ships.

COFRENA, The Association of French Marine Equipment Manufacturers, and Tribon Solutions today announced a cooperation agreement. The cooperation will provide the members of COFRENA with a framework of activities to further strengthen their communication with and presence at shipyards worldwide by participating in Tribon.com.

Tribon Solutions and Atlantec Enterprise Solutions have signed a Tribon Software Systems Developer Co-operation Agreement. Atlantec Enterprise Solutions will use the Tribon Developer’s Toolkit to develop additional functions to Tribon, e.g. for interfaces to ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), PDM (Product Data Management) and Document Management systems. The Tribon Developer’s Toolkit is a collection of tools, allowing customers to develop their own application functions based on Tribon. · Tribon Vitesse makes it possible to develop programs for design automation according to the shipyards’ own rules and with direct access to the Tribon Product Information Model (PIM).

Over the past 25 years CAD and CAM have become a vital part of shipbuilding. The individual tools have evolved into highly capable products of today. This has included the change from 2-D to 3-D CAD, a dramatic increase in the level of usability (example: from batch mode to fancy 3-D GUI's) and increased functionality within the tools themselves. With the development of these tools has also come improved integration of the CAD and CAM data. While 2-D CAD drawings were originally entered into the CAM system manually, it has now become commonplace to utilize a fully integrated product model environment from vendors such as Dassault Systems (Catia), Intergraph (ISDP), Nupas-Cadmatic, Sener (Foran) and Tribon Solutions (Tribon M1).

Over the past 25 years CAD and CAM have become a vital part of shipbuilding. The individual tools have evolved into highly capable products of today. This has included the change from 2-D to 3-D CAD, a dramatic increase in the level of usability (example: from batch mode to fancy 3-D GUI's) and increased functionality within the tools themselves. With the development of these tools has also come improved integration of the CAD and CAM data. While 2-D CAD drawings were originally entered into the CAM system manually, it has now become commonplace to utilize a fully integrated product model environment from vendors such as Dassault Systems (Catia), Intergraph (ISDP), Nupas-Cadmatic, Sener (Foran) and Tribon Solutions (Tribon M1).

Tribon Solutions AB announced that the company is opening a second office in Tokyo to expand business opportunities and increase customer service and support in Japan. Simultaneously the company will change its Japanese trading name to Nippon Tribon K.K. from 1st of October 2002. Ken Ito, who has worked 30 years in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., most recently as Acting General Manager at the head office, has been recruited by Tribon Solutions and appointed General Manager of the new Tokyo office. With his extensive experience in shipbuilding Mr Ito will be at the forefront of the Japanese operations. Mr. Ito has been leading several research and development projects in Japan related to shipbuilding CAD, production systems and other related systems.

HDW (Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG) has signed a five-year agreement with Tribon Solutions to continue their use of the Tribon Shipbuilding System at the shipyard in Kiel, Germany. HDW will use the Tribon system for design and production of all types of naval and merchant ships. HDW has used shipbuilding systems from Tribon Solutions since 1986. HDW implemented the Tribon system in 1995. Since 1986, HDW has built more than 74 merchant and 44 naval ships such as open-top reefer container ships, cruise liners, ferries, special-purpose ships, submarines, corvettes and frigates using production information from the Tribon Solutions’ shipbuilding systems. The most modern production lines and advanced construction techniques guarantee the high quality of the ships being built by HDW.

Tribon Solutions will promote the standardization of the shipbuilding CAD/CAM data exchange using XML (Extensible Markup Language) to become a de facto standard within the shipbuilding industry. Historically there have for many years been difficulties with the data exchange between various CAD/CAM systems because they all have unique data formats. There have partly been some practical data exchanges using standard data formats like IGES and DXF. These formats are based on geometry information and primarily used by the "general purpose CAD systems" for data exchange regarding drawings and solid models. Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (Class NK) and Tribon Solutions have together made intense research investigations using XML.

The Hyundai Corporation, the largest general trading company in Korea and independent company within the Hyundai group of companies, and Tribon Solutions recently signed a co-operation agreement whereby the Hyundai Corporation will support the marketing activities of tribon.com on the Korean market. The Hyundai Corporation is focusing on business to business trading, making strategic alliances with domestic and overseas companies following its "Hyundai Corporation Internet Business Master Plan" launched in year 2000. Hyundai Corporation intends to fully explore the possibilities of the Internet transforming itself into a "Global Network Digital Enterprise". tribon.com provides a neutral Internet service for the shipbuilding industry that centers around a database.

Tribon.com recently released its newest version, 6.0, for easier attainment of information. The new layout presents the relevant product information in a clear and user-friendly overview on the screen making it easy for ship designers to search and find suppliers' product information. Some of the new features are: a new presentation of search results based on product types, a more intuitive product presentation page, easily accessible search tips and help for the Browse Search and Free Search functions, modified system menu to provide a better overview and quicker access to pages and functions and general layout is improved to give a better overview.

A development agreement has been signed with the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) to further extend the functionality of the Data Management application in Tribon M2. This development contract is based on the already successful implementation of the Tribon Shipbuilding system at NASSCO. Tribon Solutions will develop functions for configuration management of a series of ships. These new functions will secure the validity and integrity of the product data for the ships in a series. The T-AKE project will be the first to use the Tribon Configuration Management functions. NASSCO will use Tribon for design and production of all their naval and commercial ships over the next five years.