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able to manage the whole process. Royal
Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL) was one of
the big shipping companies who first asked
Deltamarin to carry out a so-called chief
engineer’s review on what a shipyard had
done and later on to actually develop an
alternative design.”
Laiterä added, “Focusing your functions
around your core competence is the
right thing to do. One way to manage
subcontracting is to outsource the
coordination to a design company.”
Deltamarin took advantage of 3D
modelling in this coordination process.
Alf Björkman, explained, “This new way of
design will help us manage the vessel as a
whole. You can add a lot of controlling data in
the models about materials required for the
ship and schedules.”
Deltamarin adopted Catia software for 3D
project modelling. The initial plan was to do
development work on Catia for a year before
taking on commercial projects, but due to
great demand, the company started working
on commercial 3D modelling right away.
3D modelling had been used for a long time
in workshop design, but Deltamarin wanted
to use it at an earlier stage in the project
to reliably visualise what the ship would
look like. Representatives of shipowners
expressed a desire to have a 3D model of the
vessel included in the tender and contract
documents.
“We had utilised the 3D modelling
technique successfully in detail and workshop
designs since the early days of the company
and decided to take it forward to concept
design as well,” says Kanerva.
“We had several test projects for different
vessel types. For RCCL we developed several
3D models for passenger and technical
spaces. Theatres, atriums, dining rooms, even
cabin models and navigation bridges were on
the list.” At the time, Kanerva was quoted as
saying that none of Deltamarin’s competitors
were using 3D modelling in concept
development.
In hindsight, Kanerva says, “We promoted
3D modelling and digital communications
heavily, and were the first Finnish company
with a high-speed data transmission line to
Germany, according to Telia-Sonera. That was
pretty special and, at the time, unimaginable.”
“We worked together with the French
company Dassault Systems helping them
in the development of the Catia system for
the ship design and especially early-stage
concept and basic design. We had good
and enthusiastic people on board and
we achieved several great milestones, for
example parametric 3D bridges. When we
were designing icebreakers for Finnyards in
Rauma, we developed our first parametric 3D