1 Collaborative support for distributed design

A number of large integrated projects have been funded by the European Commission within both FP5 and FP6 that have aimed to develop distributed design solutions within the shipbuilding industry. VRShips-ROPAX was funded within FP5 and aimed to develop a platform to support distributed through-life design of a ROPAX (roll-on passenger) ferry. VIRTUE is an FP6 funded project that aims to integrate distributed virtual basins within a platform that allows a holistic Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of a ship to be undertaken. Finally, SAFEDOR is also an FP6 funded project that allows designers to perform distributed Risk-Based Design (RBD) and simulation of different types of vessels. The projects have a number of commonalities: the designers are either organisationally or geographically distributed; a large amount of the design and analysis work requires the use of computers, and the designers are expected to collaborate – sharing design tasks and data. In each case a Virtual Integration Platform (VIP) has been developed, building on and sharing ideas between the projects with the aim of providing collaborative support for distributed design. In each of these projects the University of Strathclyde has been primarily responsible for the development of the associated VIP. This paper describes each project in terms of their differing collaborative support requirements, and discusses the associated VIP in terms of the manner that collaborative support has been provided.