The Great Business

You can’t know everything.

More companies are using consultants today because of the demands of rapidly changing technologies and scarcity of technical skills. So it’s more important than ever to use consultants properly and effectively.

The Internet and e-business, among other developments, have brought the need for new technologies into old-line manufacturing companies at a dizzying rate. Plus most mid-sized companies have little or no in-house expertise or resources to understand the opportunities or pursue them for competitive advantage. Even if a company wanted to hire an in-house technical staff, finding and retaining the best and the brightest is mission impossible given today’s high technology job market. Given the cost of most benefit packages and the tenuous nature of the economy, management might not want make a long term commitment with an unproven individual.

It’s no wonder, then, that smaller companies, many that have never used consultants before, are beginning to look to this option as the only way to get into the game. But it’s difficult for these companies to determine just what kind of help they need and where to find it.

THE NEED

The employment of e-business technologies has rapidly become a necessity in all kinds of business, whether to support marketing and sales efforts direct to consumers; for effective communications with dealers, resellers or industrial customers; for communicating with suppliers and service providers or in order to participate in online marketplaces: trade exchanges and collaborative networks.

Most custom-designed and pre-packaged software applications – anything designed or built more than a year or two ago – do not fully support the communications, data transfer and interoperability requirements that are necessary to fully participate in the world of commerce.

Naval architecture is the field of engineering which deals with the design, construction and repair of ships, boats, and other marine vehicles. Ship and vessel design relies on many of the same technologies and engineering expertise found on shore, but achieving safe and effective operations at sea is the focus of a unique discipline.

Naval architecture is the familiar term for what is formally called marine engineering involving basic and applied research, design, development, design evaluation and calculations throughout the entire lifespan of a vessel. Preliminary design of the vessel, its detailed design, construction, trials, operation and maintenance, launching and dry-docking are the responsibilities of the engineer.

The basis of the discipline can be found in Archimedes’ principle, which states that the weight of a static floating body must equal the weight of the volume of water displaced by the object. This law determines not just the draft at which a vessel will float but also the angles that will be formed when equilibrium with the water has been achieved. Basic stages of ship design are focused on predicting the size of the ship that the sum of all possible weights will mandate. To make these predictions, a naval makes use of experience-based formulas that help calculate the approximate values necessary. The engineer can refine these figures to accurately predict the depth of water needed to float the vessel.

Naval architects are also tasked with calculating the static and dynamic stability of a given vessel, as well as the damage buoyancy and stability. Ship design calculations are also required before undertaking ship modifications, including conversion, rebuilding, modernization, and repair. Naval architecture participates in the formulation of safety regulations and damage control rules. Marine engineers are also involved in the approval and certification of ship designs in order to fulfil statutory and non-statutory requirements.