261

Supply chain management in the shipbuilding

industry: challenges and perspectives
M H Mello* and J O Strandhagen
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Production and Quality Engineering, Trondheim,
Norway
The manuscript was received on 26 October 2010 and was accepted after revision for publication on 22 March 2011.
DOI: 10.1177/1475090211406836

Abstract: Currently, one of the main challenges for most of the shipbuilding companies is to
manage the activities performed by a network of suppliers worldwide. Empirical evidence
shows that the lack of integration and coordination between partners of the same supply
chain affects the quality and the delivery date. Supply chain management (SCM) has been
proposed to manage the flow of material, information, and service through the supply chain.
However, the literature has dedicated significant emphasis to the high-volume sector, while
other sectors have been largely ignored. Different approaches for SCM should be considered
according to the characteristics of each industry. Therefore, this paper was proposed to provide an understanding of the role of SCM in the shipbuilding industry. A review of the literature identifies the main concepts, principles, and methods of SCM, and a case study provides
a discussion of the barriers to implementing them. The results showed that SCM in shipbuilding depends essentially on improving the relationship with suppliers and adopting appropriate
information and communication technology (ICT).
Keywords: supply chain management, shipbuilding network, managing ship projects

INTRODUCTION

One consequence of globalization is that competition is going to occur between supply chains composed of companies of different nationalities.
According to Kotler [1]

As firms globalize, they realize that no matter how

large they are, they lack the total resources and
requisites for success. Viewing the complete supply
chain for producing value, they recognize the necessity of partnering with other organizations.

*Corresponding author: Norwegian University of Science and

Technology, Department of Production and Quality Engineering,
NTNU Valgrinda, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway.
email: mario.mello@ntnu.no

If partnership with other companies is essential in a

global context, the supply chain that better learns
how to manage the flow of material, information,
and service through different companies tends to be
more competitive. As Christopher [2] says
We are now entering the era of network competition, where the prizes will go to those organizations
who can better structure, coordinate and manage
the relationships with their partners in a network
committed to delivering superior value in the final
marketplace.

In Norway, after the recent intensification of the

globalization process, some shipbuilding companies
started to focus on their core competence and outsource other activities worldwide [3]. Nowadays,
shipbuilding involves activities carried out by companies in different countries that are challenging
to manage. Also, shipbuilding has many specific
challenges that are not common to other industries,

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M H Mello and J O Strandhagen

such as the need to involve multiple companies to

design and build a vessel [4], the generation and
manipulation of enormous amounts of information
[5], the complexity of information flow because of
the operation itself and the numerous working disciplines involved [6]. Basically, every vessel is different; even vessels from the same series differ
somewhat from each other [5]. Approximately 6080
per cent of the value of a ship is outsourced, and the
complex structure of a ship demands a considerable
coordination between all those involved in the
design, engineering, and production [7]. The competence in a supply chain lies in the ability to coordinate activities across businesses and to interact
with different partners as if it were a single business
unit [8].
Supply chain management (SCM) has been proposed to manage the flow of material, information,
and service through the supply chain [911]. In the
literature, there is a considerable quantity of articles
available addressing SCM issues. However, significant emphasis has been dedicated to the highvolume sector, while other sectors have been almost
ignored [12, 13]. Most concepts for SCM design and
analysis have focused on inventory control and distribution [14, 15]. The characteristics of the shipbuilding industry demand new concepts that also
consider the product development phase (i.e. tendering, contract, concept, design, engineering, and
procurement), and its interface with fabrication (i.e.
supply, manufacturing, building, and commissioning) [13]. Therefore, this paper is aimed at understanding the role of SCM in the shipbuilding
industry, outlining the main drivers and barriers.
The paper is organized as follows: section 2 gives an
overview of the research method. Section 3 presents
the emergence of a shipbuilding network, while section 4 discusses the need to extend SCM beyond the
high-volume sector and presents some key drivers
of SCM for shipbuilding. Section 5 then presents
some experiences from a Norwegian shipbuilding
company and section 6 discusses the barriers to
achieving an effective SCM, combining insights
from the literature and a case study. Finally, section
7 provides a conclusion and highlights the potential
for future research.

questions were used to guide the development of

the study.

RESEARCH METHOD

This paper examines the drivers (concepts, principles, or methods) and barriers to achieving an effective SCM in the shipbuilding industry. Owing to the
immaturity of SCM issues [16], this study has
applied a more exploratory approach. Two research

1. What are the key drivers of SCM for the shipbuilding industry?
2. What are the barriers to applying these key drivers in the shipbuilding industry?
To answer these questions, a review of the literature
and a case study were performed. The literature
review was aimed at identifying the main drivers of
SCM in shipbuilding, while also considering the
engineering and construction perspectives. The articles were collected from databases such as Ebsco,
Scopus, Compendex, Google Scholar, and ISI Web
of Knowledge, as well as specific journals in the
maritime sector. Additional literature, including
book chapters and reports, was obtained from the
lists of references available in the articles. The
search considered the literature that contained the
following keywords: supply chain and, shipbuilding, or maritime, or ship, or engineer, or ETO
(engineering to order), or EPC (engineer, procure,
construct), or construction in the title or abstract.
Thereafter, the literature was screened for concepts,
principles, or methods for SCM as defined in the
scope of this study. A list with the most common
drivers found in the literature was made in order to
identify the key drivers.
A case study in a shipbuilding company was performed to investigate the barriers to implementation
of the key drivers. The case study is acknowledged
as an appropriate methodology to investigate
exploratory research questions and contemporary
issues [17]. The case study was carried out over a
period of time in different departments of the company, including sales, design/engineering, procurement, logistics, and project management. The data
were collected through semi-structured interviews,
on-site observations, and analysis of reports. Each
interview was conducted with the manager and took
about 1 h. Additional explanation regarding more
specific issues that were unclear was also obtained
later by telephone. Through this study, the main
challenges faced by the company were described
and discussed.
SHIPBUILDING NETWORK

The increasing complexity of products, as well as

the number of technologies and competences in the
production process, has created enormous challenges for vertically integrated companies [18].
Many companies have shifted to a new fragmented

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Supply chain management in the shipbuilding industry

form of organization derived from concepts of division of labour. This transformation has enabled
the companies to focus on their core competence
and outsource other activities, with implications for
reducing costs, increasing the ability to innovate,
and responding quickly to market changes [18].
According to the Department of Trade and Industry
(DTI) [18]
The restructuring that has occurred has been truly
radical. Apart from anything else, it has compelled
firms to engage proactively in both the creation and
management of viable supply chains.

Similarly, in the past, shipbuilding companies

were responsible for performing most of the activities to produce a vessel; even some equipment was
produced internally. This meant that many companies were vertically integrated. Nowadays, sourcing
can cover almost every phase performed in the shipyard. The so-called full shipyard became an
assembly shipyard [7]. Thus, companies decided to
outsource some activities to other shipyards, and
focus on the activities where they could remain
competitive [5]. Consequently, shipbuilding has
become a global business, involving companies in
different countries. As each company performs a
diverse range of activities to produce the same product, the integration and coordination has become
increasingly important to achieve higher performance levels [19]. Therefore, the success of implementing a shipbuilding network depends on the
ability to manage the supply chain.
4

SCM IN SHIPBUILDING, ENGINEERING, AND

CONSTRUCTION

One way to understand the different types of production is the place of stock. The place of the stock
defines the decoupling point (DP) that indicates
how deeply the customer order penetrates into the
goods flow [20] (Fig. 1).

Decoupling point
Level of stocks

Delivery !me
Customers

Suppliers

Distribute-To-Stock(DTS)
Make-To-Stock(MTS)
Assembly-To-Order(ATO)
Make-To-Order(MTO)
Engineer-To-Order(ETO)

Fig. 1 The different types of operations according to

DP (adapted from Hoekstra and Romme [20])

263

The nature of decision making is very different

from one side of the DP to another, separating the
company into forecast-driven (upstream) and orderdriven (downstream) sectors [20]. Thus, the focus of
SCM should also change according to the position
of the DP, from reducing the level of stocks (downstream) to reducing the delivery time (upstream). As
the shipbuilding industry in Western Europe produces more sophisticated and tailored ships, this
industry can be generically identified as engineerto-order (ETO) [5, 21]. Some characteristics of ETO
operations are listed below [13].
1. Individual products are generally highly customized to meet individual customer requirements.
2. There is production of a very low volume of
engineered products (one of a kind to small
series).
3. The main products have deep and complex
product structures with levels of assembly
process.
4. There are some components required in very
low volume whereas others are required in
medium or large volume.
5. Certain components are highly customized
while others are standardized.
6. Some systems use advanced control while structural steelwork does not.
7. In general, high levels of customization lead to
increased costs, higher risks, and long lead
times.
There are also some similarities between shipbuilding and the construction industry sectors that
operate as make-to-order (MTO), e.g. fluctuating
demand cycles, project-specific product demands,
uncertain production conditions, and combining a
diverse range of specialist skills [22]. Compared with
construction, differences are that shipbuilding is not
performed in different sites and the duration of
projects is usually greater.
Considering some aspects of the operation, shipbuilding has faced similar challenges to both engineering and the construction industry, which have
operations organized on a project basis. There are
large amounts of information, people, equipment,
and materials to be managed [23]. Engineering of
the complex products demands coordination of
contributions of different partners since it involves a
large volume of data and information during the
development process [24]. The interdependency
between specific tasks of main suppliers and the
shipbuilding company is very high and needs to be
coordinated [24]. The attempts to reduce the supply

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M H Mello and J O Strandhagen

base and move towards more collaborative relationships have often been filled with frustration by a
lack of trust, which can be attributed to: adversarial
relationships; a low-volume and infrequent demand
for many items [13]; use of a price-competitive procurement approach and rigid contract [25]. Also, the
subordinate position of the subcontractor is used to
exert pressure in the distribution of responsibility
for problems occurring later in the project [22].
All these challenges evidence that SCM has not
been adequately addressed in a project-based context, whereas there is extensive literature on the
high-volume sectors, particularly automotive and
electronics [12, 13, 23, 2527]. There are many
important aspects of SCM that are relevant for ETO
operations, but which have not been considered. For
example, the interactions between different phases
such as development, sourcing, fabrication, and
commissioning need to be better understood and
improved. During the development phase there is an
intensive interaction between different activities such
as tendering, contract, and design that needs to be
coordinated [13]. The characteristics of the engineering industry somehow seem to restrict the application of current SCM methods [13]. Moreover, the
SCM in project-oriented companies seems to be considerably more complex than SCM in manufacturing
companies because many projects involve several
suppliers, considerable variability in supply delivery
lead times and resource constraints, as well as frequent changes in the project scope [26, 27].
Different approaches for SCM need to be considered based on the different characteristics of each
type of industry [18]. One of the specific characteristics of shipbuilding is the variety and complexity of
systems that are developed according to customer
requirements. This demands the involvement of a
considerable number of different companies to
design and build a vessel. In complex ships about
7080 per cent of relevant innovations are developed
and implemented in a wide network of subcontractors and suppliers [28]. Suppliers and subcontractors
are also taking part in the basic research [7]. Thus,
one critical issue for SCM in improving performance
in shipbuilding is to efficiently integrate and coordinate the network of suppliers, subcontractors, and
shipyard resources [5].
A considerable number of concepts, principles,
and methods of SCM in shipbuilding, engineering,
and construction were considered from the literature (Table 1) in order to identify key drivers. The
literature was divided into three categories: shipbuilding, engineering, and construction. Then a
classification was performed considering the frequency that a driver was mentioned in each

category: high was five or four occurrences; medium

was three or two occurrences; and low was one or
no occurrences. The key drivers that follow were
selected from the drivers classified with high frequency, and represent the most common concepts,
principles, and methods in the literature. This does
not mean that others drivers are not relevant, just
that they have been less addressed in the literature:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
(h)
(i)
(j)

form strategic partnerships;

integrate management information systems;
develop a culture of trust;
collaborate with suppliers;
communicate across multiple companies;
involve suppliers in development;
inter-firm coordination;
exchange of design and production information;
inter-firm teams;
integrate product information systems.

STUDY OF A SHIPBUILDING COMPANY

The study of a shipbuilding company in Norway

demonstrates that nowadays shipbuilding involves
shipyards in different countries aiming to take
advantage of a global market (Fig. 2). For example, a
company A (case company) may perform a range of
activities relating to shipbuilding operations (usually
concept design, contract design, detailed design,
engineering, and equipment sourcing) based on
their expertise (that in this case is located in
Norway) while the remaining activities (usually fabrication, building, and so on) may be carried out by
a company B (a shipyard that could be located in
China, Croatia, Singapore, Turkey, Brazil, etc.). The
main advantage of this type of operation is obtaining the best competence from each business partner
to increase the competitive advantage of the whole
supply chain [35]. At the same time, this type of
operation enables the companies to take advantage
of satisfying their requirements for using the local
suppliers provided by many countries (e.g. China
and Brazil). On the other hand, the disadvantage is
that the effort to coordinate cross-business processes and interact with partners in the supply
chain can erode all the gains. The evidence from the
case company showed that the management of
shipbuilding operations that are widely geographically distributed is significantly complex, for the following reasons.
1. Each shipyard has different production methods, levels of organization, and technology;

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Supply chain management in the shipbuilding industry

265

Table 1 Review of the literature: drivers of SCM

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Venkataraman 26"

Dainty et al: 22"

Yeo and Ning 31"

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Hong # Minh et al: 34"

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Briscoe and Dainty 33"

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McGovern et al: 30"

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Yeo and Ning 27"

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Construction
Vrijhoef and Koskela 32"

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Hicks etal: 13"

Gosling and Naim 12"

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Engineering

Bolton 4"

Gronau and Kern 24"

Strategic partnerships
Integrate management information systems
Develop a culture of trust
Collaboration with suppliers
Communication across multiple companies
Involve suppliers in development
Inter-firm coordination
Exchange of design and production information
Inter-firm teams
Integrate product information systems
Sharing risks and rewards/power balance
Joint project management
Streamline the workflow/process orientation
Electronic data exchange (EDI)/E-procurement
Cooperative production planning
Adopt modular design/standard items
Frame agreements
Supplier/subcontractor development
Use of turnkey suppliers/systems suppliers
Postponement of product differentiation
Total cost analysis
Manage the knowledge developed in projects
Integrate logistics and production information
Involve procurement in the specification
Understand customer requirements/manage changes
Supplier quality certification/TQM
Similar values/common performance measures
Involve suppliers in customer negotiation
Vendor managed inventory (VMI)
Online inventory management/inventory control
Time compression
Flexible control/adaptable scheduling
Critical chain method
Process standardization
Kanban/JIT deliveries
Joint container systems
Shop floor coordination using RFID
Consolidated purchasing
Develop new suppliers
Shift supply chain structure from ETO to ATO
Reduce pollution and hazardous materials
Ensure on-time payments to suppliers
Protocol for dealing with problems and disputes

Fleischer et al: 19"

Drivers of SCM

Sanderson and Cox 29"

Held 7"

Shipbuilding

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ATO: assemble to order; RFID: radio frequency identification; TQM: total quality management; JIT: just-in-time.

consequently the requisites to perform each

activity change from one shipyard to another,
and this is difficult to predict. Thus, an intensive
interaction with each shipyard is necessary during the project execution, which demands a
large amount of time and increases the costs.
2. The extension of activities that a shipyard may
assume varies from one project to another,
depending on the terms of the contract signed
with a shipyard. For example, some shipyards

may demand yard supervision during the production, while others do not. This creates a challenge
to plan the resources needed in each project.
3. The fact that many activities are performed
simultaneously in shipbuilding (based on the
principles of concurrent engineering) poses
additional challenges to integrate the information and material flow. For example, hull production normally starts before the engineering is
finished.

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M H Mello and J O Strandhagen

4. Each company uses diverse information and

communication technology (ICT) systems,
which are provided by different software suppliers, and can demand extra work in order to integrate the computational systems. The shipyard
sometimes has to be convinced to sign a contract accepting the adoption of the same project
management software package.
5. As the shipyards involved in the production do
not belong to the same group, the level of interference in their operations is often limited. For
example, the shipyard may not be committed to
change its working methods, although this could
benefit another partner in the project.
6. The risks of performing projects globally are
higher given that there are more uncontrolled
factors (i.e. economical, political, social, and
others) involving different aspects of the operation. Also, the capital invested to build a vessel
is high, thus the role of each partner in the project is usually defined in a contract and this limits the potential synergy, as each partner just
follows the contractual obligations.
Globalization from an operation management perspective demands a better understanding of the characteristics of different operations to reach the benefits
of an effective SCM. For instance, a practical issue
may be related by a manager from the case company
that it is not clear which changes are necessary in the
upstream phases (development) to avoid problems
during the downstream phases (fabrication). Since the
companies are located in different countries, the
brick wall problem between the engineering and fabrication is much bigger. For example, an engineering
package (which contains all the documentation, technical specifications, and drawings to produce the vessel) of a ship already produced in Norway, when sent
to be produced in another country, can demand many
changes that were not necessary before (i.e. new
drawings, more technical information, the inclusion
of new components, change of equipment, etc.). This
evidently incurs unexpected delays and costs that
affect the performance of the whole supply chain. As
Lambert et al. [11] concluded Much friction, and thus
waste of valuable resources results when supply
chains are not integrated, appropriately streamlined
and managed.
The managers from the case company suggest
that it should be possible to develop a model to
manage the supply chain (what they have called
meta-planning) which defines the resources (information, knowledge, materials, services, etc.)
required to link smoothly each node of the supply
chain. This model could help to understand the

compensation required in the upstream activities in

order to eliminate the constraints that affect the
performance indicators in terms of delivery, quality,
and cost. The literature has also shown the potential
for research in SCM to understand better the engineering and its interface with the fabrication in the
different types of ETO operations, which include, for
example, the shipbuilding industry [12,13].
The study confirmed evidence that the information flow in shipbuilding is usually confusing and
redundant. It is very difficult to track the work flow.
Shipbuilding involves a huge number of activities
performed concurrently, where the dependencies
between different tasks are massive and complicated [5]. This demonstrates that some shipbuilding
companies have yet to establish an effective SCM.
There is a need to understand how to develop and
apply SCM in shipbuilding. Some examples of possible supply chain responsibilities in shipbuilding are
listed below.
1. Evaluate the convenience or not of partnership
or alliances with the main equipment suppliers,
and define the appropriate relationship with
each supplier.
2. Centralize the control of modifications that
occur during the project, and check if these
changes affect other activities.
3. Identify the need to provide technical support
for other partners when a problem in the supply
chain appears.
4. Analyse the best cost-effective solution for shipping equipments to the shipyard.
5. Manage the knowledge from previous projects
and make it available for other partners.
6. Check the progress of different phases and stimulate the collaboration to meet the schedule.
7. Measure the risks for the whole supply chain
network in collaboration with other partners in
the project.
8. Carry out studies to improve the overall performance of the supply chain, identifying the
potential synergy.
Some of these SCM responsibilities may eventually
overlap those of the project management (PM). In
project-oriented companies these situations naturally occur as many planning and coordination
issues can be shared by both SCM and PM. The
SCM in project-based companies is still under
development. According to Asbjrnslett [23]
The new area, the Promised Land for supply chain
management to make a contribution, is the projectoriented context and within project management.

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Supply chain management in the shipbuilding industry

Also, the approach to deal with SCM in projectbased companies seems to differ from the one usually applied in manufacturing companies [23, 26].

MAJOR BARRIERS FOR THE KEY DRIVERS

There is a trend in shipbuilding to move towards

the adoption of partnerships and reduction of the
supplier base [7, 19]. The main problem seems to
be the limitation of satisfying the requirements of
different customers after forming partnerships with
some suppliers. The customer normally has specific
preferences that need to be considered in order to
award a contract. For example, some ship-owners
have a preference for engines from a specific manufacturer to simplify the inventory of components or
to use technical skills already developed in maintenance. Perhaps one way to make partnerships
feasible is to explore with some suppliers the opportunities of costs saving by avoiding redundant tasks
(i.e. inspection, transport, packing, etc.). This can
increase the flexibility in negotiating the price of
equipment in order to convince the ship-owner to
accept a new supplier. In some cases, the ship-owners do not have a very strong opinion about their
favourite supplier; then a new supplier of the same
equipment, with similar performance, may be
accepted if a better price is offered.
The collaborative relationship with suppliers and
development of a culture of trust can provide almost
the same benefits of partnerships without any formal obligations. Collaboration seems to be more
successful based on mutual benefits rather than
agreements [33]. The competitive procurement
approach largely adopted by shipbuilding companies creates a barrier to collaboration. Also, some
suppliers provide equipment for different shipbuilding companies that compete with each other, and
this limits the development of trust. The ability to

267

improve the relationship with suppliers depends on

the capability of shipbuilding companies to adopt a
different procurement approach that also considers
the relevance of other aspects such as on-time deliveries, quality problems, level of service, number of
conflicts, etc.
The success of involving suppliers in development and establishing inter-firm teams is also
dependent on improvements in the relationship
with suppliers. The company should be able to
identify the characteristics and capabilities of each
supplier before deciding what type of relationship to
establish with them. For example, the leading
Italian shipyard Fincantieri has defined four categories of suppliers according to the profit impact
and supply risk [19]. The suppliers with higher profit
impact and product with higher supply risks
are more involved in the company decisions.
Nevertheless, many suppliers are geographically dispersed or have little (or no) common values with
the shipbuilding company, which limits the potential to involve them in development or establish
inter-firm teams. Also, some suppliers are potential
competitors; this increases the risks of involving
them in future developments.
Communication across multiple companies is
possible today by applying ICT [4, 36, 37]. However,
the different systems used in different companies
are certainly a barrier to improved communication.
The development of a common ICT infrastructure is
limited by the large number of suppliers and subcontractors, which frequently change from one project to
another. Also, it is complicated to communicate efficiently across multiple companies without establishing a clear information flow among all participants of
a project [38]. The interdependence between different
activities is massive, as many activities are performed
concurrently. One suggestion is to focus on simplifying a few core processes with significant impact on
the delivery time. Business process modelling (BPM),

Fig. 2 An example of ship production network involving two companies

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M H Mello and J O Strandhagen

integration definition for function modelling (IDEF0),

or any other method, can be applied to streamline the
work flow in order to understand the interdependences between activities.
Inter-firm coordination is a central issue to
impro-ving performance in shipbuilding. According
to Held [7]
The traditional supplier structures in the European
maritime industry are characterized by considerable
time and effort spent on coordination, a low level of
transparency and deterioration of efficiency due to
friction.

However, suppliers will not spend time and effort

on improving the coordination, if just the shipbuilding company is going to benefit. Coordination does
not occur spontaneously; to enable such coordination, shipbuilding companies need to agree on sharing the cost savings achieved or provide the
resources demanded for coordination [29].
Integration of management information systems,
exchange of design and production information,
and integration of product information systems
demand high investments in technology, the economical return on which is difficult to quantify.
Nevertheless, the integration of different ICT tools is
essential to track the progress of different phases, to
share drawings in different formats, manipulate
technical requirements, validate simulation models,
etc. There is considerable evidence that the shipbuilding industry lags behind other industries in
applying new technologies, thus there is a gap to
overcome [5, 19]. In the past some shipbuilding
companies were engaged in developing in-house
systems; however, most of these systems were
stand-alone and were abandoned later as systems
integration became increasingly important. Nowadays, there are many commercial tools to facilitate
the communication and information flow in companies with distributed operations. However, it is challenging to integrate systems developed from
different suppliers [36, 39]. Shipyards and suppliers
often have different systems platforms, program
languages, and databases. Even though different
systems can communicate with each other via format conversion, such interfacing often slows communication down and lowers the shipyards
competitive edge [40]. Moreover, a shipbuilding
information model deals with a large number of
entity types that are related to a large number of
complex relationships and business rules [41].
Nevertheless, STEP (standard for the exchange of
product model data) as based on ISO 10303, and
XML (extensible markup language) that is defined

by W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) have

been proposed as standards for exchanging product
model data from different systems [44].
7

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH

This paper has examined the drivers (concepts,

principles, or methods) and barriers to achieving
effective supply chain management in the shipbuilding industry. A review of the literature has identified
the key drivers of SCM in shipbuilding, considering
also the perspectives of engineering and construction
industries. The barriers to implementation of the key
drivers were also discussed based on a case study
performed in a Norwegian shipbuilding company.
The paper contributes to understanding of the role of
SCM in shipbuilding, pointing out specific challenges
that need to be considered in order to improve integration and coordination. Also, the paper assists
understanding of some industry differences in SCM
and provides a basis for further investigations of
SCM in shipbuilding.
Despite the similarities with engineering and construction, shipbuilding has its own specific characteristics that determine the concepts, principles, or
methods of SCM. There is a significant complexity in
the product structure and frequent changes from one
product to another. Thus, some key drivers, such as
communication across companies, involving suppliers
in development, inter-firm coordination, exchanging
design and production information, and implementing inter-firm teams, were more frequently mentioned
in shipbuilding than in engineering or construction.
Essentially, SCM in shipbuilding is dependent on
improving the relationship with suppliers and the
adoption of appropriate ICT tools. The suppliers play
a very important role in improving shipbuilding operations, as they are responsible for a major part of the
value created [42]. Also, shipbuilding is a step behind
in the application of ICT compared with other industries, thus there is a gap to overcome [5].
Future research will model the interface between
development and supply chain in order to investigate
the constraints in the execution of global pro-jects.
Further research should be conducted comparing the
drivers of SCM in different industrial contexts. This
could clarify the specific drivers of SCM according to
industry characteristics. Many drivers classified as
medium and low frequency should be more fully
investigated. There is also potential for investigating
SCM in shipbuilding considering the different types of
vessels. There is a considerable difference between
producing an offshore support vessel (more customized) and a container carrier (more standardized).

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Supply chain management in the shipbuilding industry

Finally, the recent advances in ICT provide ways to

improve SCM that still have not been completely
explored [43]. The specific challenges of SCM in shipbuilding should be considered when applying ICT.

11

12

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study is part of a project called Innovation in
Global Maritime Production 2020 (IGLO-MP). The
authors acknowledge the Research Council of
Norway (Norges forskningsrad) and sponsor companies for their financial support. A special acknowledgement is also dedicated to the managers of the
case company that provided the empirical data and
valuable discussion.

13

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15

! Authors 2011
16

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