All electric ships dependable design: Implications on project management

Dependability has only recently become a unified theory, developing its own taxonomy, lexicon and methods. This newly formed discipline now regroups concepts defined and developed within international rules corpus in different areas of engineering, such as: aerospace, automotive, computing, etc. Applications to marine sector are, at present, partial, lacking in terms of systematic approach and limited in extension. Dependability techniques provide system analysis methods that classify faults, detail consequences with associated risk index. These indications are quintessential in assessing design progress and effectiveness, in discussing issues and consequent modifications required, in quantifying impact of faults in terms of operations, in directing product and documentation development, rendering easier and less conflictual demonstrating specification adherence. Aim of this work is demonstrating dependable design can be obtained with a bearable effort, implanting dependability techniques on an already present ship design substrate, and that dependability techniques may be profitably employed as project management tools.