Complex Systems Design: Sustainability Challenges for Shipbuilding

Ships are complex technical systems resulting from large scale and scope projects in which integration plays a key role, particularly because trade-offs have to be made between conflicting objectives. Merchant ships are usually built with a perspective of twenty-five years of service. Ship owners detail their requirements and ship specifications in line with their strategy to remain competitive on specific segments of the shipping markets. Ships serve and organize global trade flows. The rise in environmental regulations and technological changes generate unprecedented uncertainties for ship owners. Ships do not follow the usual systems engineering process, as there is no full-scale prototyping. Rules and standards deeply influence the design of ships and limit the possibilities to 'think outside the box'. The purpose of this paper is to present environmental drivers relating to the operation of the ship which have, or will have, an influence on the way it is designed.Licens fulltext: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0