PROSTEP and South Korean AI specialist Lattice have signed an MoU to bring automated engineering data conversion and digital thread technology to the country’s shipbuilding and offshore sectors. The partnership targets a familiar problem for shipyards and their suppliers: converting design data from international clients into formats that can be used in local CAD and manufacturing systems without losing model structures or manufacturing information.
Under the agreement, PROSTEP will provide its OpenPDM integration technology while Lattice will handle local implementation and services. A first proof of concept is planned as the starting point for the collaboration.
The issue extends beyond the transfer of 3D models. Shipbuilding projects can involve different CAD, PLM, ALM and ERP environments, with model structures and manufacturing-related attributes needing to remain semantically correct during conversion.
PROSTEP’s OpenPDM SHIP provides connectors for shipbuilding-specific CAD systems and enables CAD data, including manufacturing information, to be exchanged between connected systems. The company says automated conversion can reduce the time and cost involved in recreating design data for manufacturing.
That capability could matter to shipyards handling projects where design work originates from different engineering environments. Keeping information intact between design and manufacturing systems can reduce manual data recreation and give production teams access to the same engineering information without rebuilding models.
Lattice was founded in 2023 and specialises in AI applications for document, contract lifecycle and knowledge management in shipbuilding and offshore. Its work includes enterprise applications at a South Korean shipyard, including a shipbuilding specification management system and an ontology-based knowledge management system for special-purpose vessels.
Sangwon Kang, CEO of Lattice, said: “PROSTEP is one of the world’s leading integration specialists and has numerous references in the shipbuilding and offshore sectors in Europe, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific region. That’s what convinced us.”
Peter Pfalzgraf, Partner Manager at PROSTEP, said the partners plan to introduce additional components of the PROSTEP Digital Thread Platform to South Korea over time.
