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In today's hypercompetitive and fast changing business environment, companies are increasingly under pressure to find new ways to make their business operations lean and profitable through acquiring a sustainable competitive advantage. Some essential ways of doing this are by looking for improvements in innovative ways and being more responsive to market changes. / The marine industry is no exception to these changes, and faces a similar situation. The question of how to succeed in today's rapidly changing competitive environment poses the greatest challenge for companies in the industry. This study focuses on this issue by examining how different subsets of the marine industry perceive the competitive environment and what they assess to be the possible responses to the challenges they face. / This study examines the competitive strategies of the marine switchboard industry in China, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Specifically, the research question that is asked is: how can marine electrical switchboard manufacturers gain a sustainable competitive advantage in today's fast changing marine global industry? The study begins by reviewing the related literature to define possible competitive strategies, as well as the key factors required for acquiring a competitive advantage. These are related to the marine electrical switchboard industry to see how they can best be applied. / Next, an investigation is done to ascertain the persistent and systematic similarities and differences in the competitive strategies of different players in the industry. Empirical data was gathered by using three questionnaires, which were administered by mail and through interviews. The first questionnaire targeted ship-owners and operators, shipyard executives and engineers, and marine consultants and designers. The second questionnaire was aimed at marine equipment suppliers and manufacturers, while the last questionnaire was used during interviews with shipyard executives and engineers. / Fifteen hypotheses were tested as part of the study. The overall results show that higher product quality, lower production cost, and better customer service are the three most important factors for improving competitive advantage. Interestingly, the results suggest that there are more similarities than differences in the ranking of competitive strategies in the marine industry across countries in spite of quite different composition, structure and stage of development of the marine industry in the three countries studied. Customers may not be concerned with how efficient a company is, but rather in how its internal operations impact them. It is the outside-in view that raises the issue of differentiation and it is by differentiating itself on items such as these above factors that a business achieves a competitive edge / Moreover, in order to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage, firms will have to “out-innovate” the competition continuously so that the customer is the ultimate beneficiary. Beyond technological innovations, a firm's service innovations have become increasingly important. Essentially, service innovation depends on the firm's ability to evolve, collaborate and enter partnerships that effectively fulfil customer's holistic needs and thereby increase the opportunities for enhancing customer relationships. On a long-term perspective, creating an environment that successfully nurtures and maintains their relationship with their customers is one of the primary challenges faced by the management of every organization. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2005.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Australia, 2006.

Thesis (M.S. in Information Technology Management) Naval Postgraduate School, Sept. 2001. / Thesis advisors, Nissen, Mark E. ; Jansen, Erik. "September 2001." Includes bibliographical references (p. 101). Also Available in print.

Thesis (Master of Engineering and Ocean Engineering)--University of California Berkeley, December 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leafs 32-33).

This thesis presents a comparison of added mass modeling techniques that may be used to determine the the vibration response characteristics of ships in water. The mathematical treatment of added mass is reviewed, and a number of numerical approaches are discussed. Experiments to determine the natural frequencies of a ship model in air and in water were performed and were compared with the results obtained from the numerical approaches. It will be shown in this thesis that the use of modal analysis to predict ship vibration responses in water is a satisfactory and less time consuming alternative to a full eigenvalue solution. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Mechanical Engineering, Department of / Graduate

The aim of this research is to develop computational tools to predict the large amplitude motions and loads on ships travelling with forward speed in waves. An experimental research programme was completed to validate the non-linear prediction method. In this thesis, the results of theoretical and experimental investigations to predict the non-linear ship motions, slamming pressures and bending moments in regular head seas are presented. The ship hull is considered to be a Timoshenko beam, where the vibratory elastic response of the ship is calculated by the modal superposition method with the solution represented in terms of a series of normal modes. It is assumed that the mode shapes and natural frequencies can be determined by a separate structural analysis where this modal information is appropriate to the vessel in the equilibrium reference condition when floating in calm water. The global dynamic shear force and bending moment values are predicted using two different methods:The first method developed is based on the elastic vibratory response due to the total hydrodynamic force; The other is based on the rigid body response due to the linear force superimposed with the elastic response due to the impact forces. The results by the elastic vibratory response due to the total hydrodynamic force (method 1) have a good agreement with the experimental results and these are much better than the results by the rigid body response superimposed with the elastic response (method 2). The non-linear effects due to the change of the hydrodynamic coefficients and the non-linear restoring force should be considered in the ship motion and load predictions. The nonlinearity of ship motions as well as a significant nonlinearity between the hogging and sagging wave and global bending moments are shown in the results obtained from the non-linear theoretical predictions and the experimental data. The non-linear ship motions and sea loads, predicted by the practical computational tools, newly developed in this thesis, can be used to further ship structural strength analysis and guide ship hull design.

The SWATH ship has been claimed as one of the advanced high performance vessels which can provide good seakeeping characteristics as well as maintaining high speed in rough seas. Despite the considerable amount of research and development carried out in the last fifteen years, there is still a lack of design data in the open literature concerning many of the specialised aspects of SWATH design. Two of these areas are the motion characteristics of hulls which are operating fairly close to the water surface and the design of active control systems to reduce static trim and motions in waves. This study is an investigation, both theoretically and experimentally using a model, into SWATH motion characteristics in the vertical plane. It aims to have an understanding of the seakeeping behaviour with and without the effect of fins in waves. The computer program for the motion prediction involves the computation of the hydrodynamic coefficients of the equations of motion on the practical range of frequencies, depth of submergences and column widths. The effects of these factors on the sectional hydrodynamic coefficients are discussed and are curve-fitted into approximate formulae in order to save computer time. The total (three dimensional) hydrodynamic coefficients are integrated stripwise, taking into account the forward speed and viscous effects. Analytic methods for the wave induced exciting forces were formulated and obtained by two approaches; the modified Morison's formula and the strip theory. The sectional Froude-Krylov force, caused by the undisturbed incident wave pressure and a diffraction component resulting from the distortion of the wave train by the presence of the hull integrated over the mean immersed surface of the hull section. Phase differences of the sectional forces are considered during the integration procedure. The forward speed and viscous effects are included together. In addition, a series of laboratory tests in calm water and waves as well as theoretical studies aimed at the design of vertical-plane control surface (fins), which would keep the SWATH ship on a near level trim at speed in calm water and reducing the inherently low level of motion in wave have been carried out. The forces generated by fins are composed of inertia effects and viscous induced lift and cross-flow drag. Since the fins are attached to the hull, the lift-curve slope were corrected by the fin-body effect. Only after fins are considered in the study, the combination of the forward fins are believed could be summed linearly. However, the downwash effect on the after fins by the forward fins are not able to be included. Since the exciting and restoring forces of a SWATH involved are smaller than those of the comparable monohull, adequate control forces can be generated for a SWATH at speed by reasonably sized fins. The good agreement of the comparisons of the analytical calculations and the experimental measurements confirms the accuracy of the study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate novel methods on an unmanned sailing boat, which enables it to sail fully autonomously, navigate safely, and perform long-term missions. The author used robotic sailing boat prototypes for field experiments as his main research method. Two robotic sailing boats have been developed especially for this purpose. A compact software model of a sailing boat's behaviour allowed for further evaluation of routing and obstacle avoidance methods in a computer simulation. The results of real-world experiments and computer simulations are validated against each other. It has been demonstrated that autonomous boat sailing is possible by the effective combination of appropriate new and novel techniques that will allow autonomous sailing boats to create appropriate routes, to react properly on obstacles and to carry out sailing manoeuvres by controlling rudder and sails. Novel methods for weather routing, collision avoidance, and autonomous manoeuvre execution have been proposed and successfully demonstrated. The combination of these techniques in a layered hybrid subsumption architecture make robotic sailing boats a promising tool for many applications, especially in ocean observation.

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