Scope of Panel Line Control Module

An assembly part consists normally of several plates, welded together to a big plate area, and a number of profiles that are used to stiffen the resulting assembly. The most important of these stiffeners are mostly parallel to each other. In addition assembly parts, especially in the internal structure, may contain holes, minor stiffeners around the holes,

A panel line for production of assembly parts consists of several "stations", typically those listed below. However, this may differ between yards depending on the techniques used, the facilities available,

1. A station for preparation of the piece parts that will be welded together to form the assembly part.

2. A station for welding of the assembly part butt joints.

3. A station for cutting to final dimensions and marking up of the assembly part.

4. A station for mounting and welding of the main parallel stiffeners on the assembly part.

5. A station for assembly of the remaining parts (stiffeners, smaller brackets, ) and other assemblies.

(Station 2 may comprise of equipment for welding and turning of the assembly part.)

The Panel Line Control Module (in this document called PLCM) contains modules supporting certain of the activities in stations 1, 3 and 4 in this list. These modules can be used rather independently depending on the facilities available in a certain yard.

The software modules involved in PLCM consist of both new programs and of existing modules which have been changed. New programs are:

• the actual PLCM module (which is an interactive program),

• a new post processor.

Existing modules which have been given extended functionality are:

• Hull Modelling,

• PPANPARTS (for extraction of parts from the model).

This document contains a survey of the modules involved in PLCM and notes on their specific use in this context.

PLCM is normally dependant on assembly names, set in the Assembly Planning application.