The National Shipbuilding Research Program (NSRP) is an industry–government collaboration managed by ATI that exists to research, develop, and transition practical shipbuilding technologies into real-world use across the U.S. industrial base. By coordinating stakeholders and managing technical, contractual, and administrative functions, ATI enables NSRP projects to move efficiently from concept to deployment.

At Austal USA’s Mobile shipyard, the deployment of Floor2Plan Shipyard Manufacturing Execution System (MES), developed by Floorganise, marks a powerful example of how industry-driven research initiatives yield real production improvements. The MES solution, which emerged through a project under the National Shipbuilding Research Program (NSRP) called “Automated Detail Planning and Production-Control,” enabled Austal to bring a mature, shipyard-specific planning and execution tool into its operations. By building on the NSRP-supported work, Floorganise brought lessons learned from European yards and adapted them for the U.S. commercial/new construction shipyard space, giving Austal a pathway to greater operational predictability, productivity and
control.

This case highlights the broader strength of NSRP’s collaborative framework and its mission to “employ” a unique collaborative framework to research, develop,
mature, and implement industry-relevant shipbuilding and sustainment technologies and processes”.  ATI’s consortium model, enables industry, government
and shipyards to work together in a structured manner.  Therefore, a tool like Floor2Plan, which originated in the NSRP project environment, is able to transition from research or concept into active ship-yard production.

That transition from concept to deployment is precisely what NSRP envisions as a downstream benefit: in this case a shipyard, Austal’s decision to adopt the
technology means NSRP’s support has yielded tangible downstream benefit: a shipyard now equipped to plan, monitor and control in a more digital, integrated
fashion, thereby reducing rework, boosting output and strengthening U.S. ship-building competitiveness.