Today, March 8th, the new “Integrated Ship Design Lab” was inaugurated as result of the agreement between the Department of Engineering and Architecture (DIA) of the University of Trieste, Fincantieri and Intergraph Italia, part of Hexagon group. It is a multidisciplinary space unique in Italy. Fincantieri donated 12 last generation workstations and Intergraph just as many licences of Smart Marine 3D software. The Laboratory will be used for research activities concerning instruments and methods for integrated ship design, for activities involving third parties (relationship with partner companies and training of specialists), and educational purposes, providing to marine engineering students of the University of Trieste the knowledge of the most innovative technologies for ship design and the training for the usage of the associated IT systems. The improved skills of the students will grant a competitive advantage for the industries where they will be employed.

The Integrated ship design is a new methodology able to take into account all the requirements and constraints since from the early stages of design process. This approach assures developing a final product functioning, technologically adequate, and economically effective. In this contest, all the fields of naval architecture and marine engineering are involved together with several other disciplines. They have to be combined in order to obtain the best possible synthesis. This interdisciplinary approach stimulates the collaboration of many excellences from the local academic institutions and it is leading to new interesting collaborations. In the last years, many research groups have been studying new approaches on marine plants, structures and hydrodynamics. This knowledge will be deepened with the help of the new instruments of ISD Lab leading to the definition of new methodologies and procedures to improve the design of even better ships while saving time and reducing the costs.