In brief

In brief

  • Today’s naval shipbuilders must innovate to drive down costs, deal with increasing complexity and deliver new growth.
  • Digital reinvention is their only option for achieving this.
  • The best approach for shipbuilding is Industry X.0 combined with a comprehensive view of the shipbuilding lifecycle.
  • To navigate this journey, a shipbuilder must take a practical, systematic approach based around six steps.

The future of naval shipbuilding

The naval shipbuilding industry is seeing unprecedented change and disruption, under the impact of trends including rising program costs, expanding international opportunities, and rising pressure from government customers seeking value for money. Together, these trends are creating four imperatives for today’s shipbuilders.

  1. Deliver and secure margin and time-to-market of complex shipbuilding programs.
  2. Drive down costs, lead time and quality issues in design, manufacturing and the supply chain.
  3. Drive innovation towards the creation of the connected ship and the connected fleet.
  4. Develop new services to increase ship availability and effectiveness in operations.

As the pressure on budgets continues to intensify, naval shipbuilders must do all these things at pace if they are to become competitive internationally.

Digital reinvention is the only option

There is only one way that shipbuilders can rise to all these challenges: by embracing digital reinvention. In Accenture’s view, the way forward is to apply Industry X.0 to power their progress to be the digital leader in the industry. Shipbuilders must consider several considerations to realize maximum value from digital transformation.

  1. Reinvent the business
    As well as consolidating and protecting core business, new revenue streams can be opened.
  2. Take a lifecycle view
    Take a view of the whole lifecycle, from design through build and into service maximises benefits.
  3. Exploit wide value potential
    Value can be realised in several areas from reducing cost to enhancing customer experience and increasing availability.
  4. Realise benefits for all stakeholders
    Benefits can be realised by all stakeholders in the enterprise from builders and operators to the extended supply chain.
  5. Invest in key digital capabilities
    Focus on coordinating effort around growing key digital capabilities, not just deploying point technology solutions.

Digital future in the new maritime ecosystem

  1. Digital twin and thread across the ecosystem
  2. Connected ship, naval base and control tower
  3. Connected workforce
  4. Digital project control across a connected supply chain
  5. Digital Shipyard
  6. Secure, open platform for new digital services

Digital in shipbuilding – it’s not a matter of “if”, but “when”.

About the Authors

Adrian Spragg

Managing Director

Christophe Dolet

Managing Director

Paul Mylon

Managing Director

Craig Gottlieb

Principal Director


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