Marinedrafting News

SSI CEO Darren Larkins, together with President & CTO Denis Morais, acquired ownership of the shipbuilding software development company from founder Rolf Oetter effective March 1, 2018. The two longtime employees have been managing SSI for the past seven years and have been entrenched in all aspects of the company’s day-to-day operations for even longer. Larkins, SSI’s fifth employee in 1999, said that through the years he and Morais have done “pretty much everything that SSI does at some point.” He added…

Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow, Scotland has invested in a comprehensive package of SSI products.   Ferguson has chosen to implement almost every ShipConstructor product including: Hull, Structure, MarineDrafting, WeldManagement, ManualNest, AutomaticNest, ProfileNest, NC-Pyros, Pipe, P&ID DesignValidation, PipeSupports, Penetrations, Equipment, ProductHierarchy, and Report.   Ferguson Marine has a 110-year history in which it has completed the design, engineering and fabrication of newbuild, repair refit, and conversion projects in a wide range of vessel types.

Holland Shipyards has selected SSI's ShipConstructor software for its new shipbuilding activities. Holland Shipyard undertakes newbuilding, repair and conversion of small and medium-sized vessels. Florian den Besten, Naval Architect with Holland Shipyards, explained his company's thinking when purchasing new CAD/CAM software. He said, "First of all, the system is user-friendly as ShipConstructor is AutoCAD based and contains all features needed by our architects. Secondly, the architects appreciate the ease of making 2D drawings with the MarineDrafting application of the ShipConstructor Hull Structure Premium Suite. The 2D drawings are used for workshop and classification drawings. The simplification of the technical drawings, by using appropriate symbols, makes them clear and readable.

The speakers representing various companies at next week's SSI Americas ShipConstructor User Conference, October 7-9, 2014 in Mobile, Alabama, demonstrate SSI's philosophy of creating software solutions for the shipbuilding industry that integrate with best of breed applications, the company said. SSI executives will highlight the competitive advantages avalable with the implementation of recently released products such as EnterpisePlatform, MarineDrafting, Electrical, PipeLink, WeldManagement and PipeSupports. In the workshops SSI technical staff will provide particular focus on hands-on workflows, best practices and maximizing the efficient use and benefits of the tools.

Rooted in early computer-aided design (CAD) and manufacturing applications, design and construction software is firmly at the helm of most shipyards today, enabling the production of  better designed, more efficient and consistently built ships produced with measurably less waste: less waste of time, materials, man hours and most important, money. The ROI can be substantial, and is traceable throughout the entire process, across all sub sectors such as project management, purchasing, materials, labor and build sequencing.

As part of its Technical Webinar Series, SSI will host a ShipConstructor MarineDrafting Product webinar on Wednesday, September 24, 2014 from 8-9 a.m. (PDT). The webinar aims to introduce end-users to this new product and will include a short presentation and live demonstration. A technical lead will be available to answer questions. In a world of 3D design and manufacturing, many activities still need to be supported with 2D drawings during design and throughout the shipyard.

ShipConstructor 2014 R2.1, released from SSI, has been specifically designed to rapidly respond to emerging trends in ship design and engineering as identified by SSI's new Client Council program, the company said. "Both technology and industry requirements are evolving quickly so our clients continually need to adapt," explained SSI CTO Denis Morais. "SSI's Client Council program has been designed to address this by having focus groups of similar clients propose new features that SSI can quickly incorporate into our software.

On the sidelines at Norshipping 2013 in Oslo, Maritime Reporter caught up with Darren Larkins, a 14-year veteran of Ship Constructor, serving the last two years as CEO. The topic: the evolution of the company from that of an engineering tool supplier to a more consultative role, an evolution culminating in the changing of its name from Ship Constructor to SSI. Why the rebrand from Ship Constructor to SSI? Traditionally our core business has focused around ShipConstructor which is an engineering tool focused on the shipbuilding core disciplines.

With the release of its new ShipConstructor 2014 software, SSI said it has dramatically enhanced ShipConstructor's user experience to promote more efficient workflow. Major new products have been added to the software suite containing improved capabilities for the design and construction of piping systems along with enhanced capabilities for the reuse of design work. Most noteworthy of all is an innovative new product called MarineDrafting which allows 2D approval and workshop drawings (in DWG format) to be created directly from the 3D model while remaining associatively linked.