Similarity-based cost estimations for eto-products

Abstract

Correct and accurate cost estimations are critical for shipyard companies. Traditionally cost estimations for one-off ship designs are based on expert opinions and statistical-based methods. In this paper, we introduce a method for improving cost estimations in the pre-contract stage of a one-off design shipbuilding project. Pre-contract means that the available information is limited. The introduced method is based on the idea that, although a new vessel has never been built before, cost of similar building assemblies can be found in the production information of earlier produced vessels. The assessment of similarities is performed by means of error-tolerant graph matching. Research to date shows that only taking the basic activities into account, without taking the context into account, does not always lead to a good and reliable result. The example in this paper is based on the ship block assembly process.