I work for a boat builder that produces roughly 50 boats a year. Every boat is "custom" and thus is more complex in nature. This makes scheduling and planning more difficult and I am lookin
Matthew DortchInventory Control Manager| Munson BoatsWa, United States
The build process is broken down into three main categories.
1. Aluminum construction (keel, hull, wheelhouse, etc.
2. Paint
3. Finish (All components, electrical, hydraulics, engines, etc.)
Lastly is sea trials and delivery. Saving Changes...
Sort By:
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Matthew
Interesting your question
Thanks for sharing
Is production stabilized? 50 boats a year?
Is each boat treated as a project?
Are there parts, components that can be the same for all boats produced?
Does the process necessarily have what you described? Saving Changes...
Matthew,
I work for an aircraft manufacturer that makes that many planes a month. Each customer is different. I'm not sure what your question is as it was cut off, but the product is broken down into different categories for scheduling and planning, including vendor design and purchasing.
The general architecture such as primary structure doesn't change, so stable plans can be developed there with limited changes usually made as blockpoints over time.
Reusable features, such as if you have engine selection, lavs and galleys at standard locations, electronics, etc. are developed into reusable packages. When someone buys a radar from Supplier X, we know what mounting fixtures, wiring, trim, etc. goes with that feature.
The final bucket is truly custom. This would be things like paint, and brand differentiation items like custom finishes, their own logo coming up on the electronics, entertainment items, etc.
It is much easier to develop plans from layers of stability in the features, than it is to make every product a custom build. That of course requires organizing your product structure in ways that facilitate modularization.
On the project side, we organize them by the amount of stability as well. A pure repeat of a prior build (e.g. customer wants 4 identical boats), doesn't get a PM. A larger SOW with multiple reusable features in a new configuration will get a PM to provide oversight as a part time assignment. A very large SOW with new features, and significant customization will get a dedicated PM (or several), and gets significant attention at the leadership level. Saving Changes...
Are there any part of the process that are the same for all fifty boats? Have you defined all the processes and tasks that are required to build a boat? Are all the parts for completing the boat made in house or do they come from suppliers? Is the nature of the business seasonal or do you have orders coming in all year round? What is the timeline from order to delivery?
From the sounds of it it seems like your business has grown from building a few boats a year to fifty boats a year which may not have been your intention or expectation when starting out. This sounds like growing pains and you need to reeevalutate all you processes in order to keep up with demand. You could also only focus on specific size boats instead of fulfilling every order thats on your books. Also make sure that you prices are inline with what the industry on average is charging and as labour and suppliers prices increase your prices reflect the increases.
Daire Saving Changes...
Al TaylorI.T. Contractor| IndependentWaterloo, Ontario, Canada
Keith defines it more completely.
But I think like in a large part of airplane production. Each unit is different after the basic frame but everything can be changed after that. So each unit is a project after the basic frame production. Saving Changes...
Sunil ChitreFounder | CEO| Blue Sun Development LLCRound Rock, Tx, United States
Sounds like your projects have 4 basic phases:
1) Aluminum construction
2) Paint
3) Finishing
4) Sea trials
Unless you custom design each hull, the first phase should condense down to the selection of one template from the library - one per hull design. Similarly for the paint phase, size of hull and number of colors could be used to build a library of templates. If there's a minimum set of sea trials required, that's another template, with each optional trial being a template of its own.
The finish out phase seems the most complex, and that's presumably where most of the individual selections take place. You could still create some templates for each component of the finishing.
With a suitable library of templates you could build a complete schedule for each build that has most of the information you need in it. Some adjustments would need to be done to meet the specifics of each build, but you wouldn't be starting from scratch. Saving Changes...
