We have identified projects related to our core business that would enhance our business goals. These projects are currently not funded, or are collaborative efforts.
Building markets: We anticipate our initial chemical processing plants will produce anhydrous ammonia. This is a widely used commodity chemical with an immediate market as a fertilizer and as a common industrial chemical. The new solid-state ammonia
synthesis (SSAS) process is ideally suited for use on a remotely located plantship. The SSAS process will lower production prices, which will create new market opportunities for ammonia. For instance:
Software Tool Chain:The operational side of build plantships requires setting up software
tool chains to manage the processes in the business operations. The design and manufacture of
plantships will not press the state of the art in computer aided design
and manufacturing software. The manufacturing tolerances on building
the platform and the energy conversion equipment would have easily been
met with technology available in 1940. Our planned production will require tracking a significant amount of materials. Software will be required to managie schedules for the production of of components, such as the large heat exchangers and hull components. Most other components will be purchased
as off the shelf parts. The components will be large and there will be many of them, but total parts count and total number of part types will be moderate for a ship of the size that is being built. Examples of tasks to be managed by the software tool chain include: - Plantship Design
- Production Materials Management
- Assembly Planning
- Hull Component Production
- Heat Exchanger Production
- Hull Assembly
There is a clean cutoff to define the
boundaries between our plantship services and the customer's
responsibilities. We will negotiate an agreement on the weight budget
for the chemical processing plant components and a long term contract
on the purchase of electricity. With the agreement in place it is up to
the customer to manage the installation and operation of the chemical
plant. The platform will be moved to a dock at which the customer can
outfit their part of the ship.
Open Source Software Projects: Commercial software will be
specified for each activity of the operation of the shipyard, but we
will also investigate opportunities to use open source software
whenever it looks practical. The concrete hull construction isn't
commonly used in ship building, so it may be easier to adapt an open
source tool to manage this design and manufacturing activity than it
would be to adapt shipbuilding tools designed to managed welded steal
hulls. Some example of tools we would like to have available for
developing our products and our manufacturing capabilities are
described in more detail in our software projects.
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