Shipdex is a collection of international business rules developed to standardize and improve the production and the exchange of technical information between equipment makers, shipyards and ship-owners according to international

S1000D S1000D is an international specification for the procurement and production of technical publications. It is an XML specification for preparing, managing, and publishing technical information for a product. It was initially developed by the AeroS ...

specifications already in use for about 30 years in the military sector (naval, land and

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astron ...

) and adopted more recently by

Civil aviation Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military and non-state aviation, which can be both private and commercial. Most countries in the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization and ...

. It enables equipment manufacturers and shipyards to structure, write and deliver technical manuals, and to load ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CMM (Computerized Maintenance Management) systems with technical manual contents into a standardized electronic format, making them much easier to produce and manage, compared to traditional methods of writing technical manuals using a

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current word ...

. Shipdex Protocol covers technical data exchange in any maritime project, and is open to any company or organization which wishes to use it by registering a
www.shipdex.org

Organization

The Shipdex Protocol was developed by the following (founding member) companies: Grimaldi Compagnia di Navigazione S.P.A., Intership Navigation Co., Ltd., Mastermind Shipmanagement Ltd.,

Alfa Laval Alfa Laval AB is a Swedish company, founded in 1883 by Gustaf de Laval and Oscar Lamm. The company started by providing centrifuges to dairies to be used to separate cream from milk. It now deals in the production of specialised products ...

, MacGregor, (a part of Cargotec Group),

MAN Diesel & Turbo Everllence SE (Societas Europaea) is a German manufacturer of large diesel engines and turbomachinery for maritime and stationary applications headquartered in Augsburg. The company develops and manufactures Two-stroke diesel engine, two-stroke ...

, SpecTec Group Ltd., and Yanmar Co. Ltd., but was registered as a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

for

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

purposes under the name of Grimaldi Compagnia di Navigazione S.P.A. and Internship Navigation Ltd. Currently the Shipdex organization is composed of the following Executive Members: MAN ES, Mastermind Shipmanagement (chairman), Rolls-Royce Maritime, Shipdex Consulting (technical manager), Yanmar, G&C Shipping, Winterthur Gas & Diesel. The Shipdex Protocol is developed, maintained, and promoted by the Shipdex Co. Ltd (CY), a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

whose purpose is to standardize the electronic exchange of technical data in the shipping industry. The Shipdex Protocol is maintained by the Shipdex Protocol Maintenance Group (SPMG) which obtains agreements from the Executive Members prior to application changes. The SPMG considers change proposals issued by Shipdex Registered Members at each meeting and may ratify them for incorporation in the Protocol. Any queries or proposals relating to changes to the Protocol are addressed to the Technical Manager of the SPMG using the online "Change Proposal Form" (CPF) at www.shipdex.com.

System architecture

The Shipdex Protocol specification criteria were designed to provide the end user with essential, complete, and non-redundant technical information which is linked to logistic studies (if any), equivalent analysis, and related maintenance strategies. Document contents are gathered in an organic way into "Data Modules" (DMs) defined as "the smallest self contained information unit within a Shipdeck data set". The structure of these modules vary, depending on the type of data dealt with. Every DM corresponds to a specific, uniquely identified electronic file produced in the

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

language, which allows the user to structure and identify each individual piece of information contained into the DM itself. Every DM contains data which can refer to other DMs, to "information objects" (illustrations, symbols, multimedia objects) or external documents (in

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, MS Office, or simply Office, is an office suite and family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. The first version of the Office suite, announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at CO ...

formats). Specifically, the DMs contain the following types of information: * ''Identification and status'', containing all identification and quality assurance information * ''Content'', which varies, depending on the following Data Module types: * ''Descriptive'' * ''Procedural'' * ''Illustrated parts data (IPD)'' * ''Maintenance Planning'' * ''Service Bulletin'' * ''Learning'' The Data Module types that the Shipdex Protocol makes use of are: ''Descriptive'', ''Procedural'', ''IPD'' and ''schedule''. These DM types are governed by the relevant S1000D XML schemas version 2.3 (available for free download fro
www.s1000d.org
. All Data Modules that are applicable to the "product" (a civil or military sea vehicle, equipment or facility) may be gathered and managed in a database, called the ''Common Source Data Base'' (CSDB). Information is not duplicated in the CSDB, although individual DMs can be used many times in the output. Savings are made in the maintenance of the data because it only needs to be changed once, and the updated information appears throughout the output.

External links

More information about Shipdex, including Powerpoint presentations, Shipdex demo datasets, movies, news, registration at the Shipdex newsletter, etc., are available on
www.shipdex.org

S1000D

References

{{reflist XML-based standards