Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 406 APRIL 2017 • FOGHORN FOGHORNFOCUS: SHIPBUILDING A nyone who has ever embarked on the exciting endeavor of building a new vessel will likely have mixed feelings about the process. These feelings are both positive (excitement and optimism) and some not so positive (trepidation and concern). That’s all perfectly normal. Constructing a new vessel is a huge responsibility and not one to be taken lightly from anyone involved in the process, shipbuilder and owner alike. Transparency in the process alleviates much of the aforemen- tioned trepidation and concern. Almost all issues that arise during the ship- building process can be contributable to lack of communication, accountability or informa- tion sharing. This was especially true in the “old” days when communication was through written letter and sent via the U.S. Postal Service but with the advent of technology, there is a better, more interactive way to manage projects and keep everyone on the team informed of all aspects of the job in real time. Today, technology readily exists that makes it easy to solve the problems associated with lack of information sharing, such as working in a vacuum, duplication of effort, and control- ling information. Technology allows all team members to do their work in a central location that the rest of the team has access to and all team members see the same thing at the same time. Having this ability effectively eliminates the issues that can arise when individuals, for whatever reason, aren’t working together co- hesively. Business today moves at a rapid rate, with questions and answers, problems and solutions, coming in faster than at any other point in history with email and mobile devices causing customers and workers to always be “on.” It’s important that shipbuilders keep up and move at today’s speed of business. Implementing and using software provides a platform that manages projects and enables its team to communicate in seconds, not hours, days or weeks. As a shipbuilder with decades of experience and hundreds of vessels under its belt, Horizon has learned that by using a sophisticated software package that’s easy to use, managers, supervisors, workers, and customers share problems and quickly arrive at mutually agreed upon solutions. This results in an integrated team that moves in the Technology Offers Transparency to the Vessel Building Process By Lance C. Lemcool, Horizon Shipbuilding same direction at the same time. The collaborative process, required of shipbuilding, is streamlined and goals are more quickly achieved, all of which benefits the customer and creates a better product. While there is a myriad of off-the-shelf software packages in the marketplace that offer an astonishing number of bells and whistles, many of them seem to miss the mark on the most basic needs for shipbuilding: ease of use and complete transparency. For Horizon, creating custom software was the only real way to get what was needed to ensure everyone