Systems Engineering in Ship Design Education - is this the answer to changed industry demands?

The shipping industry is rapidly changing, putting new demands on ship designers and naval architects. The change is threefold; the configuration of the logistic chains increases in complexity, the structure of the regulatory system involves more aspects, and the employment of new computer-based design tools allows evaluation of different concepts and concurrent design processes. The traditional model of the ship design process does not support multiple concept generation and parallel activities. Design methods based on a systems approach considering the wider system, i.e. logistics and socio-economic system, better respond to the new demands. This paper analyses, through a case study, how Systems Engineering based methodology taught to Naval Architect students influences the design methods they use. The results show that it is important to integrate Systems Engineering training in the ship design education to give the next generation of ship designers the framework they need to handle the changed industry demands and to increase the competitiveness of future shipping services