GL enlarges Shanghai ship plan approval office

Shanghai: Classification society Germanischer Lloyd has inaugurated its new, larger plan approval office on the 11th floor of Shanghai Central Plaza at Huaihai Middle Road. The new site, which is capable of accommodating up to 50 naval architects and marine engineers, was launched with an open office afternoon, a series of technical presentations and an official opening ceremony in the evening

The decision to move to larger premises has been attributed to rising demand for plan approval of Chinese shipyards in China. In a statement, GL said, "In view of the enormous worldwide demand for shipping tonnage, the fabrication of ships is becoming ever faster. A pure construction period of about eight months still requires half a year of lead time. The shorter the lead time, the sooner the actual production can begin.  

"The contribution a classification society can make to accelerate the workflow is demonstrated by speedy drawing review, customer closeness and electronic tools for the transmission and administration of project documents. The shipbuilding and machinery engineers carefully examine every detail of a given ship design - whether tanker, bulk carrier, container vessel or passenger ship. The number of individual drawings to review, check, copy and dispatch can easily top 1,600 for a single ship. "

As of October 2007 GL offers the entire design review process based on digital documents that can be examined on a computer screen. This is also available for ship designs approved in Shanghai. [20/05/08]