Product Work Breakdown Structure

Abstract
The work required for any large construction project must be subdivided in order to be readily analyzed and managed. Any such subdivision scheme is a work breakdown structure. Traditional shipbuilders employ work subdivisions by ships functional systems which are natural and appropriate for estimating and for early design stages. However, system orientation for planning, scheduling and execution is unnatural and inappropriate because it leads to poor coordination of work and generally results in work packages which are too large for effective control of material, manhours and schedules. The way that ships, and most other manufactured artifacts, are actually produced is by procuring or fabricating parts and joining them to create subassemblies. In turn, these are combined through several manufacturing levels to produce increasingly larger subassemblies. Thus, the ideal way to subdivide ship-construction work is to focus on needed parts and subassemblies, i.e., the actual interim products that preoccupy workers. A scheme to subdivide work in accordance with art interim-product view, is a product-oriented work breakdown structure. The need for a product-oriented work breakdown structure which conforms with the way a ship is built was identified for U.S. shipbuilders over a decade ago. At that time there were already substantial applications by some shipbuilders abroad.

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