Journal of Ship Production and Design, Vol. 29, No. 1, February 2013, pp.

1–8
http://dx.doi.org/10.5957/JSPD.29.1.120045

Block Erection Sequencing in Shipbuilding With General Lifting

and Joining Times

Henri Tokola,* Esko Niemi,* and Heikki Remes†

*Department of Engineering Design and Production, Aalto University School of Engineering, Aalto, Finland
†
Department of Applied Mechanics, Aalto University School of Engineering, Aalto, Finland.

This article studies the scheduling of block erection in shipbuilding. A mathematical

model is formulated to minimize the makespan, i.e., the time between the start and
finish of the erection schedule, when there are different lifting and block joining times.
Structural stability and the no-skipped-blocks property are taken as constraints. The
model is used to study the erection in three special cases. First, the case with a short
lifting time is analyzed. Second, a solution is constructed for the case in which joining
times are short and, third, the case in which the lifting and joining times are the same
is analyzed. The article shows how these three cases can be solved efficiently, and,
in addition, it gives insight into the erection scheduling such as the effects of the
number of blocks in the horizontal and vertical directions on different joining times.

Keywords: block erection; scheduling; optimization; shipbuilding

1. Introduction
BLOCK ERECTION is the process in which the hull of a ship is built
by joining blocks together. It is also called hull erection. Blocks
are large welded steel structures that are typically manufactured as
single pieces. When a block is ready, it is typically arranged near
the launching place, lifted to the launching place, and welded to
other blocks there. Block erection in shipbuilding is a unique phase
when shipbuilding is compared with the normal type of mechanical
engineering production. It is also typical that block erection is
a bottleneck for the whole process (Yoon et al. 2006). The block
erection sequence typically defines the production order for the
previous stages as well. This all makes the scheduling of a block
erection order important.
In the literature, articles about block erection exist. In many
articles such as in an article by Lee et al. (Lee et al. 1997), block
erection is considered together with the whole production process.
In most of those articles, the erection is typically just mentioned
briefly as one part of a larger problem. There are some exceptions
to this. In an article by Caprace et al. discrete-event simulation
is used to solve the erection process (Caprace et al. 2011). Their
approach gives a list of constraints to be considered during the
Manuscript received by JSPD Committee August 21, 2012; accepted
November 19, 2012.
block sequence generation. They also mention the different strat-
egies for erection used in practice such as starting from the
middle, fore, or aft part of the ship; erecting the ship slice by slice;
or using a pyramidal strategy. Another recent article in which
different erection constraints are explored is by Meijer et al. (2009).
They focus on risk management and their aim is to find the most
critical blocks in the schedule. Both articles lack further analysis
of the effects of the erection parameters on the erection schedule,
which is dealt with in this article.
Block erection scheduling is generally considered a hard prob-
lem and several articles give heuristic solutions to the problem
(Okumoto 2002; Varghese & Yoon 2005, 2006; Yoon et al. 2006;
Chung et al. 2009; Jinsong et al. 2009). In the problem setting,
the blocks form a hierarchical succession network, which means,
e.g., that a block on the second level is a successor of the cor-
responding block on the first level. This kind of property with
the different processing times can make the problem hard to solve
optimally. Because of this, different heuristics such as genetic
algorithms are used to solve the problem. An article by Okumoto
(2002) proposes a solution for positioning a block with dimen-
sional errors during the erection. A solution in an article by Yoon
et al. (2006) optimizes the makespan in the situation with flexi-
ble lifting dates of the blocks. An article by Varghese and Yoon
(2005) deals with the spatial block arrangement problem, which
is the step before the erection. An article by Jinsong et al. (2009)

FEBRUARY 2013 2158-2866/13/2901-0001$00.00/0 JOURNAL OF SHIP PRODUCTION AND DESIGN 1

 Fig. 1 Production of blocks in shipbuilding

studies the block erection with multiple cranes and shows how
the problem can be defined as an identical parallel machines
scheduling problem. There are a few other kinds of solutions to
the erection problem. Another article by Varghese and Yoon
(2006) shows that the problem can be formulated as a traveling
salesman problem. The theory of constraints approach is briefly
considered in an article by Chung et al. (2009). All of these
articles typically focus on how a specific method can be used
to model the problem and the focus of those articles is on the
details of the specific methods rather than the effects of the
parameters on the whole production, which are explored in this
article. In addition, this article also explores how and when the
problem can be solved analytically.
This article constructs a mathematical model of erection sched-
uling, analyzes the special cases of the model, and shows how
in many cases the model can be solved analytically using well-
known algorithms. The analysis and algorithms are used to gain
important insights into how the lifting time and block joining
time after erection affect the scheduling of the erection. To the
best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a detailed model
for the block erection has been used to study the impact of the
lifting time and block joining time, which includes, e.g., the weld-
ing time and creation of any support structures for other blocks.
The rest of the article is organized as follows. Section 2
describes the block erection model. Section 3 shows how joining
times affect the total production time, or makespan, in three dif-
ferent cases. Section 4 outlines the insights from the earlier results
of the article and, finally, Section 5 concludes the article.
2. Block erection schedule
The shipbuilding process typically consists of the manufactur-
ing of blocks, block outfitting, block erection, and final outfitting.
At first, blocks are typically constructed in a factory-like envi-
ronment. Then basic outfitting is done for them in the block
outfitting phase. After this the blocks are erected to build the
ship and finally the remaining outfitting is done. Figure 1 shows
a simplified overview of the shipbuilding process.
Block erection is the focus of this study. In it, the blocks are
typically erected onto the ship hull by a crane. In block erection,
the blocks are first attached to the crane and then lifted from the
pre-erection area to their place on the hull of the ship. After lifting
the block, the crane becomes available for other blocks, but the
lifted block is positioned in its place and joined to the other
blocks by welding. To keep the partial construction stable and
support the joining work, temporary supporting structures are
needed. Lifting typically takes several hours, whereas the join-
ing work can take days. Figure 2 shows an overview of the block
erection process.
The block erection schedule determines the lifting times for
the blocks. For the schedule to be made, capacity and block pre-
cedence constraints have to be considered. Later in this section,
the constraints of erection scheduling are discussed and a mathe-
matical notation of block erection scheduling is formed. Using
the constructed model, the effects of lifting and joining times are
studied later in the article, in Section 3.
2.1. Constraints of block erection scheduling
Erection scheduling orders the block erection sequence so that
the makespan, i.e., the length of the whole schedule, is minimized.
Here the block sequence has the following constraints:
1. Lifting capacity: only one block can be lifted at a time.
Because of this, there has to be a certain time lapse between
two successive blocks.
2. Joining time of adjacent blocks: there is typically a mini-
mum amount of time between the erection of two adjacent
blocks. This includes time for joining the first block to the
hull and construction of the support structures for the next
block. This article studies a version of this constraint in which
horizontal and vertical joining times are different.
3. Structural stability: the construction should be stable,
e.g., the construction should have more material horizon-
tally than vertically.
4. No-skipping-blocks property: because of the tolerances,
blocks should not be inserted between others.
The constraints used here are similar to the ones that were
described in the article by Meijer et al. (2009). However, in that
article, the descriptions of the constraints were quite brief and the
effects were not studied, which is done in this article. This study
concentrates on erecting the blocks as fast as possible, which might
not be optimal for the whole shipbuilding process in some cases,

Nomenclature

H ¼ height of hull p ¼ minimum delay between consequent DH ¼ joining delay in the direction of the height
L ¼ length of hull erections (lifting time) of the hull, i.e., vertically
A ¼ lifting time matrix; Ahl is the lifting time DL ¼ joining delay in the direction of whl ¼ weight for the lifting time of the block at
of the block at level h and column l the length of the hull, i.e., horizontally level h and column l

2 FEBRUARY 2013 JOURNAL OF SHIP PRODUCTION AND DESIGN

 Fig. 2 Block erection process
Fig. 3 Example of ship block erection schedule, i.e., the lifting time matrix A when H is 4 and L is 9
where, e.g., closing the deck would be useful after most of the
blocks had been erected. The closing deck constraint appears in
another article by Meijer et al. (2009). In another article by Meijer
et al. (2010), there is a yard-dependent preference as well, which
is not considered here.
2.2. Model
The mathematical models of the objective function and con-
straints are described next.
2.2.1. Block structure. Let us assume that a ship block struc-
ture is a grid of blocks consisting of H levels horizontally and
L blocks vertically. The blocks are assumed to be similar. Note
that these are simplifications compared with reality, where it is
typical that there are different numbers of blocks in the aft, fore,
and top parts of the ship. There might also be multiple blocks in
the direction of the ship’s width, which is not typical, however.
However, for the middle part of the ship, where most of the
blocks are, this is quite a good approximation and it is used here
to ensure that mathematical formulae can be written clearly and
the effects on the structure can be analyzed easily without, e.g.,
any need for special handling of different block structures.
2.2.2. Schedule. Let A be a matrix of variables so that for each
combination of level h E ½1; 2;. . . ; H  and position l E ½1; 2;. . . ; L
in the direction of the ship, the value of Ahl denotes the lifting
time. This defines the erection schedule. In addition, a starting
time x is needed for the first erection, i.e.
Ahl  x; 8h  ½1; 2; . . . ; H ; l  ½1; 2; . . . ; L
FEBRUARY 2013
Figure 3 shows an example schedule and describes how these
variables and block structure are related. The ship is built starting
from the middle at the time 1 and there is a delay of 1 between
consequent blocks. Because there are no additional delays, the
last block is erected at the time HL ¼ 36.
2.2.3. Objective: makespan. The objective of erection schedul-
ing is to minimize the length of the schedule, the makespan.
The makespan is calculated by defining the largest Ahl as follows:
Minimise maxh½1;2;...;H ;l½1;2;...;L Ahl ð2Þ
The different blocks have different weights, whl. For example,
it might beneficial to erect s machine room as fast as possible
and therefore its weight should be large. Makespan minimization
can be combined with weight whl as follows:
Minimise maxh½1;2;...;H ;l½1;2;...;L  Ahl þ (h¼1 (l¼1 Ahl whl
H L
ð3Þ
Negative weight can be used to delay the block until as late
as possible. However, to minimize the makespan, the absolute
values of negative weights should be so small that they do not
affect the makespan too much.
2.2.3.1. Constraint: lifting capacity. In shipyards, there is typi-
cally only a single large crane and so it is typical that only one
block can be lifted at a time. Erection preparation capacity or
other capacity restrictions may also lead to a similar situation. As
ð1Þ a consequence, there has to be a certain processing time between
JOURNAL OF SHIP PRODUCTION AND DESIGN 3
two successive blocks. The simplest way to model this is to make
this duration fixed, p, as is done in the following equations.
Ah1 l1  Ah2 l2 þ pkAh1 l1 þ p  Ah2 l2
8h1 ν1; 2; . . . ; H ; h2 ν1; 2; . . . ; H ; l1 ν1; 2; . . . ; L;
l2 ν1; 2; . . . ; L; h1 6¼ h2 ; l1 6¼ l2
2.2.3.2. Constraint: joining time of adjacent blocks. There must be
a minimum amount of time between the erection of two adjacent
blocks as a result of the joining and preparation of the adjacent
block that was erected earlier. This joining time includes all the
work that must be done before one block can be erected next
to another, including, e.g., welding and the creation of structures
for another block (i.e., staging/scaffolding). In this article, this
time can be different horizontally and vertically.
Horizontally, a delay of DL could be taken into account as follows:
Ahðlþ1Þ > Ahl þ DL kAhðlþ1Þ þ DL < Ahl ;
8h ν1; 2; . . . ; H ; l ν1; 2; . . . ; L  1
A delay of DH in the vertical direction can be modeled as follows:
Aðhþ1Þl  Ahl þ DH ; 8h ν1; 2; . . . ; H  1; l ν1; 2; . . . ; L
In practice, the joining time in the vertical direction, DH, is
different from the joining time in horizontal direction, DL, because
of the different welding amounts and support work. For example,
the staging and scaffolding may be needed for the top of the
block below. In addition, many of the support utilities inside the
blocks, e.g., pipes, run in the horizontal direction, which can
make horizontal joining harder.
2.2.3.3. Constraint: structural stability. The hull should be more
horizontal than vertical at all times because otherwise, the con-
struction may become unstable. The stability of the structure
is modeled here as follows: if a block is inserted, the adjacent
blocks on the level below should be in place. This can be modeled
mathematically as follows.
Aðhþ1Þl  Ahðlþ1Þ ; 8h ν1; 2; . . . ; H  1; l ν1; 2; . . . ; L  1 ð7Þ
Aðhþ1Þl  Ahðl1Þ ; 8h ν1; 2; . . . ; H  1; l ν1; 2; . . . ; L
There are more ways to model structural stability, but this
approach is taken here because of its simplicity. Another way could
be to restrict the number of adjacent blocks on the level below so
that it would be greater than that of the adjacent blocks on the
current level. In practice, some kind of complex stability calcula-
tions could be done for each of the possibilities to calculate its
feasibility. However, they are harder to analyze than this approach.
2.2.3.4. Constraint: no skipped blocks. As a result of the placing
tolerances, blocks should not be inserted between others. This can
be modeled as follows.
Ahl >Ahðlþ1Þ >Ahðlþ2Þ k Ahl < Ahðlþ1Þ < Ahðlþ2Þ k Ahl >Ahðlþ1Þ < Ahðlþ2Þ ;
8h ν1;2;...;H ;l ν1;2;...;L2
In practice, the building is typically started from aft or fore or
from a certain position of the ship, e.g., from the middle. If this
4 FEBRUARY 2013
kind of defined horizontal order is used, then the no-skipped-blocks
constraint is always feasible.
ð4Þ 3. Effects of horizontal joining time and vertical
joining time
In this section, using the model formulated in Section 2, the
effects of the horizontal joining time DL and vertical joining time
DH are studied. First, the case with a short lifting time is consid-
ered and a formula for the makespan in that case is constructed.
Second, the case in which the joining times are short is analyzed
by finding the minimum levels that give the minimum makespan.
Third, the case with arbitrary lifting times and similar DL and
DH is analyzed and used to study the effects of the constraints.
3.1. Short lifting time
ð5Þ If the block lifting time is short compared with the joining
times, it can be assumed to be zero, i.e., p ¼ 0. After that, it
is quite straightforward to construct a plan for building the ship
and analyze its makespan. This is all done next. For the sake of
ð6Þ simplicity of analysis, let us assume that L is odd.
Because of the no-skipped-blocks constraint, the building has
to be started from a single block. After inserting that, we can insert
at most DH/DL blocks on each side of the first block before it is
possible to insert a block on the second level. In addition, we have
to add at least one block to each side of the first level to satisfy
the stability constraint of the block on the second level. There-
fore, the number of blocks on the level below the top level is
2*max(DH /DL, 1) þ 1. When the construction is raised by one
level, the levels below can have max(DH /DL, 1) more blocks on
each side of the construction. Therefore, when there are h levels,
the number of blocks on a level i is 2(h-i-1) max(DH /DL, 1) þ 1.
This rule works until the aft or fore part of the ship has been reached.
By using this setting and before hitting the top, aft, and
fore parts, the blocks form a pyramid. It is possible to calcu-
late the angle of the pyramid rising, a, from the equation tan
a ¼ max (DH /(2DL), 1). A high DH /DL ratio makes the shape
of the building flat, whereas 45 is the maximum angle, which is
achieved if DH /DL  2. An illustration of the pyramid rising is
ð8Þ shown in Fig. 4.
To build the next level, we need at least DH waiting time
if DH  DL or DL waiting time if DH < DL. Therefore, the
makespan for a growing pyramid, m1, is the following.
m1 ¼ ðH  1Þ maxðDL ; DH Þ ð10Þ
This formula works when the pyramid is growing or when
the aft and fore parts are reached as well. However, it does not
work when the top level of the ship has a block, i.e., the top-level
h becomes H.
Whenever a block has been inserted into the top level, the
building continues toward the corners. In that case, we can use
similar formulae, but we take into account the building speed
toward the corner as well. If DH  DL, it again takes DH to add
the next level (without the top blocks), where the ship grows
ð9Þ by 2DH/DL blocks horizontally. Thus, at least (L-1)/(2DH /DL)
“levels” have to be built to complete the building after the first
block is erected on the top level of the ship, which will take
(L-1) DL /2 time steps. If DH < DL, it takes at least (L-1)/2 blocks
JOURNAL OF SHIP PRODUCTION AND DESIGN
Fig. 4 When the lifting time is fast (i.e., it can be considered immediate), it is optimal to erect the blocks so that they form a triangle with two a angles
(an isosceles triangle)
in each direction to finish the ship, each of which has to wait
DL time units. Thus, it takes at least (L-1) DL /2 time units to
finish the corner part of the ship. This is the same as with the
previous case in which DH  DL. From this part, it is easy to
see that starting from the middle of the ship minimizes the
makespan, because it would take more time to fill the larger corner
than two equal, but smaller, corners. Therefore, the makespan
for filling the corners of the ship when work is started from the
middle of the ship is
L1
m2 ¼ DL
2
Now the makespan can be calculated from these equations.
By summing up the previous equations, (10) and (11), for m1 and
m2, we get a formula for the makespan m, which is
L1
m ¼ ðH1Þ maxðDL ; DH Þ þ DL
2
From equation (12), it is easy to see that in general, H has a
larger effect than L and DL has a larger impact than DH. Figure 5
shows how DH and DL affect the makespan with different H and
L values.
3.2. Short joining times
If the joining times are short compared with the lifting time,
the problem of scheduling becomes quite simple. This model
becomes practical, e.g., if the joining times of the blocks are parts
of the lifting times and there are no actual joining constraints.
Fig. 5 Effect of DH and DL on the makespan, m. The results are generated using equation (12)
FEBRUARY 2013
If the joining times are zero, then there are no precedence
delays in the problem. This case is also applicable if the joining
times are short compared with the lifting times (i.e., DL << p,
DH << p). The problem can be solved efficiently, because all
feasible solutions have a minimum makespan. Because there is
no waiting after lifting, the makespan, m, is clearly the time that
it takes to lift all blocks, i.e.
m ¼ HLp ð13Þ
This approach can be adapted for block completion times with
ð11Þ a nondecreasing cost function C(l, h, t) for the time t and a block
in the position l, h. To do that, the first block on each level has
to be fixed, because it defines the relative precedence order
of the blocks on a single level. Now, when there are only fixed
precedence constraints between the blocks, the problem can be
arranged as a single machine problem with the precedence con-
ð12Þ straints of zero delay (In the theory of scheduling, the formal
definition of the problem is n j1 j prec j Cmax [Conway et al. 1967])
and solved using the algorithm in Lawler (1973). The structure of
the algorithm is the following.
1. Let the time t be the sum of the lifting times of all the blocks.
2. Consider the blocks which do not have any predecessors
among the blocks that are not scheduled. Schedule the one
with the lowest cost if done at the time t to the time t.
Reduce t by the lifting time of the block.
3. Repeat Step 2 until all the blocks are scheduled.
For a practical model, the considered lifting time has to be the
sum of the lifting time and the maximum of the joining times.
JOURNAL OF SHIP PRODUCTION AND DESIGN 5
This rule can also be used as an approximate solution with short
joining times.
3.3. Similar lifting and joining times
If the joining times are the same horizontally and vertically
and the lifting times are multiples of that, the problem becomes
easy to analyze. From the literature we can see that the problem
becomes easy to solve if there are unit precedence delays between
the processing of the items and the execution time is a multiple of
that (Finta & Liu 1996). In the model in this article, this means
that the precedence delays, i.e., the joining times of the blocks,
all have to be the same fixed length, but the lifting time can be a
multiple of that. Like with the case with zero precedence delays,
the first block on each level has to be fixed for this solution to be
used with no-skipped-blocks constraints.
Such a problem can be solved optimally using the Coffman-
Graham algorithm. It was first implemented for another problem
(Coffman & Graham 1972) but later found out to be useful in this
case as well (Finta & Liu 1996). The structure of the algorithm
is the following:
1. Remove transitive constraints. The constraint from a to c
is transitive if there are already constraints from a to b
and from b to c. In our model, this applies to some of the
stability constraints.
2. Let there be f final blocks, i.e., the blocks that do not have
any successors. Assign labels 1,. . . , f for these final blocks.
3. Let there be k unlabeled blocks. Consider the unlabeled
blocks whose predecessors are all labeled. Assign k þ 1 to
the block for which the decreasing sequence of the imme-
diate successor’s labels is lexicographically lowest.
4. Repeat Step 3 until all blocks have a label.
5. Schedule the jobs using the decreasing order of labels as a
priority. Note that this can make the actual schedule dif-
ferent from the decreasing order of labels.
The algorithm can be used as an approximation in a situation
where there are different delays, e.g., by using the maximum of
delays. If maximum delay is used but there are several delays,
the Coffman-Graham algorithm could be further improved in
Fig. 6 The effect of L on the makespan with different constraints when the Coffman-Graham algorithm is used to calculate the makespan. H is
set to 3. DL ¼ DH ¼ p ¼ 1. L varies from 1 to 8
6 FEBRUARY 2013
the case of ties by selecting the one with the largest L*(i), where
L*(i) means the longest path to the completion of the final task,
where the execution times and precedence delays are taken into
account, as was done in an article by Moukrim et al. (1999).
The Coffman-Graham algorithm is used to study the effects
of the size of the ship on the decision to build the ship starting
from aft (which is the same as starting the ship from its fore part)
or from the middle block (i.e., the block at the position L/2
rounded to the nearest integer). The results are calculated in a
case in which stability is taken into account with the precedence
delay and in a case in which there is no stability constraint.
Figure 6 shows the value of the makespan when L is varied and
Fig. 7 when H is varied.
3.4. General case
These solutions give efficient solutions for erection scheduling
in specific cases. However, they do not cover the case in which the
joining times are longer than the lifting times, which can arise
quite often in practice. To find a solution for this case, the model
in Section 2 can be quite straightforwardly used as a mixed-
integer-linear-programming (MILP) model and solved optimally.
However, as is often the case with complex MILP models, solv-
ing industrial-scale problems optimally takes time and some kind
of heuristics are probably needed to solve the problem. The advan-
tage of the MILP model is that it can quite easily be expanded to
more detailed models. Models with more constraints can be even
easier to solve.
4. Insights from the models
In this section, insights are drawn from the models of Section 3.
First, a short lifting time allows us to see the effects of different
parameters on the makespan. Second, a short joining time makes
the problem of makespan minimalization easy. Third, with similar
lifting and joining times, the problems are the first and the last
blocks. Finally, the validity of the models is discussed.
In the case of short lifting times, we can deliver some insights
from equation (12). In a flat ship, the horizontal joining times,
i.e., the value of DL, can be more important than the vertical
JOURNAL OF SHIP PRODUCTION AND DESIGN
Fig. 7 The effect of H on the makespan with different constraints when the Coffman-Graham algorithm is used to calculate the makespan. L is
set to 6. DL ¼ DH ¼ p ¼ 1. H varies from 1 to 4
joining time DH. It is better to reduce one unit from the horizontal
joining time, DL, than one unit from the vertical joining time,
DH, when (L – 1)/2  2H þ 1 (flat ship), even if DL > DH.
If DH > DL, reducing DH does not give any benefit. However,
although horizontal joining times have a greater effect than verti-
cal ones, the number of blocks in the length of a ship does have a
smaller effect than the number of blocks in the height of a ship.
The reason for this is the no-skipped-blocks constraint, which was
used when the equation was being formulated.
If the joining times are short, the scheduling is shown to be
easy because all feasible solutions give a minimal or near-minimal
makespan. In that case, we should clearly focus on other things
than the makespan. However, if the joining times can be made
short, the result shows that the scheduling has significant flexi-
bility, because changes in the schedule do not incur any penalty if
the schedule is feasible after the changes.
Fig. 8 The areas of erection time and joining time where the proposed
algorithms should be used for erection scheduling
FEBRUARY 2013
In the case of similar lifting and joining times, it is easily seen
that the starting of the building and ending of the building are the
cases in which the joining times have an effect. After the first
couple of blocks, there are always blocks that can be erected and
joined to the blocks of which the joining times have passed. The
same can occur when the last blocks are inserted. From the results
in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 we can see that starting from the middle of
the ship is the better solution. The reason for this is that it allows
the ship to be built in two different directions, and blocks can be
erected in one direction while the joining in the other direction
is completed, which reduces the effect of the joining time at the
beginning and end of the erection schedule. Stability does have
a significant impact with ships with a small number of horizontal
or vertical blocks.
It should be noted that the solutions do not cover all possible
joining time and lifting time combinations. Figure 8 shows the
areas where the analysis of the article is valid and where the
algorithms described should be used. The equations with short
lifting times, which make the construction form a pyramid, are
valid if the lifting times are short compared with the joining times.
All schedules give a good makespan if the lifting time is the
bottleneck. The Coffman-Graham algorithm can be used when
the lifting and joining times are equal or the lifting times are
multiples of the joining times. If both times are short, then it is
unlikely that the erection scheduling is the problem in the ship-
building and other things should be optimized.
As shown in Fig. 8 and stated in Section 3.4., there exists a
significant area where the algorithms do not work, which is when
the lifting time is significant but shorter than the joining times.
For these cases, the model in Section 2 can be used as a MILP
model and solved optimally or a suitable heuristic could be used.
The algorithms in this article that are optimal for the other cases
could also be used as heuristics for that case.
5. Conclusion
This article studies the dynamics of block erection in ship-
building. To do that, a mathematical model was formed for
the multiple constraints with the makespan because the objective
and the effects of the lifting and joining times were studied.
JOURNAL OF SHIP PRODUCTION AND DESIGN 7
Furthermore, the model was used to study the problem in the
following three different cases:
1. Lifting time is zero, but there are horizontal and vertical
joining times.
2. Joining times are short compared with the lifting time.
3. Lifting and all joining times are similar.
For the first case, with zero lifting time, a formula is con-
structed that shows how the different joining times and the size
of the ship affect the makespan. A general conclusion from this
is that the horizontal joining times have more impact than the
vertical joining times. In the second case, where the joining times
are short, the problem becomes easy to solve because all feasible
solutions give an optimal makespan. A heuristic is proposed for
solving the problem with other objectives than the length of the
schedule. In the third case, in which the erection and joining
times are similar, the problem can be solved efficiently using the
Coffman-Graham algorithm. Using this algorithm, the article shows
how stability and production strategies affect the makespan.
The solutions proposed in this article are efficient, i.e., they
can easily be solved using a computer, even with larger ship
block structures. This can make their use more practical than
earlier heuristic solutions that appear in the literature. The authors
encourage practitioners and researchers to develop the algo-
rithms further. The solutions presented in the article give insight
into how the design and production parameters generally affect
the makespan, which could be important in the early design of
the ship. Although the model does not fit every ship block struc-
ture, it could be used, for example, in the design of the block
structure for large cruise ferries or for subblock structures.
The mathematical model used in this article is somewhat sim-
plified and therefore it can be studied further and extended. There
are many interesting areas for further research. For example, all of
the constraints could vary, depending on the blocks, or multiple
blocks could be erected simultaneously. Extra joining capacity
could be used or preparation can be pre-emptive, i.e., it can be
stopped and continued later. The processing times could differ
between the blocks or working could be faster because of learning.
8 FEBRUARY 2013
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