Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), the world’s most productive shipbuilder, has selected Aveva’s marine products for the design and production of ships and offshore projects at their shipyard in Ulsan, Korea.

The contract, worth $12.5million, followed a three-year, detailed and wide-ranging evaluation of CAD/CAE/CAM solutions from all major vendors and includes implementation of the current Aveva marine products with licences for more than 1,000 designers. HHI will initially use Tribon M3 and PDMS and take up the new Vantage Marine products as they are released. It will also, together with other major shipbuilding companies worldwide, be a part of the Vantage Marine reference groups - consultative bodies of major shipbuilding companies that will provide industrial knowledge to the ongoing Vantage Marine programme. Development in consultative partnership remains a core value at Aveva, accounting for the wide-ranging use of its solutions and their flexibility.
The first release of Vantage Marine will be in mid-2005, combining the technology of PDMS, which is a popular outfitting solution, with that of Tribon M3, the leading hull design, assembly and production solution. This first release will meet immediate customer demand for the best of both solutions, include new marine functionality and demonstrate the compatibility of the two technologies. Hyundai will also deploy Aveva’s unique engineering collaboration and integration platform - Vantage Enterprise Net (VNet). This is the first application of VNet in the marine sector and a milestone in the roll out of VNet across Aveva’s target sectors of marine, oil and natural gas, and power.
Louay Dahmash, Aveva’s regional director, Middle East, said, “Our new partnership with Hyundai is very significant for the Gulf and Middle Eastern markets as the shipping industry both globally and in the region is expanding like never before. As the requirement for the number of vessels is constantly increasing owing to this boom, Hyundai can expect tremendous demand for their services. This also gives us a chance to extensively deploy our VNet solutions in the marine sector.”
The worldwide shipbuilding industry is expected to spend $27.2 billion on marine propulsion systems between 2004 and 2008, which is an increase of 21 per cent over the previous five-year period. The total value of shipbuilding output is projected to peak at around $45 billion in 2005 and 2006 with 1,864 vessel deliveries and over 2,850 main engine installations.   
“Dubai has developed rapidly to become a very strategic port for maritime trade, with its annual throughput demand currently growing by around 15 per cent. It is expanding its ports and establishing a maritime city, which is an integrated state-of-the-art development that will provide every element of infrastructure required by key marine and maritime-related industries,” remarked Dahmash.
“A strong economy, coupled with the investment and development taking place in the Middle East region has facilitated a healthy growth in all sectors of shipping. While shipping lines are experiencing growth in volumes and freight rate levels, there is also a surge in orders for next-generation mega-vessels which will require high quality engineering solutions like Aveva’s VNet.” 
Aveva Group plc operates globally through three divisions: Aveva Consulting, Aveva Managed Services and Aveva Engineering IT. A fourth division, Aveva Solutions, is responsible for product development. The group’s technology has been integral to the engineering process of industrial plants with a value in excess of $500 billion for more than 800 clients across the globe, including leading plant owner/operators and engineering contractors.