Challenges and Trends in Shipbuilding Industry: Digitization of SEDEF Shipyard in Turkey

The new trend, Industry 4.0 (I 4.0), forces all institutions to undergo a new transformation in order to gain an advantage. This development, as well as dynamic and very complex shipyard sites, are no exception to adapt to the changing new situation in the implementation of the I 4.0 principles. In this respect, shipyards need to carefully and comprehensively evaluate the challenges and opportunities they may encounter while adapting to this new situation. The capabilities, problems, competition and economic conditions of each shipyard are unique to them. For this reason, both the transformation process to be followed and the projects to be implemented will be unique. In this direction, projects in accordance with the principles of I 4.0 have been implemented in some shipyards and the I 4.0-transformation process has been initiated. In this article, SEDEF shipyard, the leading shipyard in Turkey, has started to implement a number of projects within the scope of I 4.0. In this article, a case study is presented about the projects that were started to be realized at SEDEF Shipyard after evaluating the opportunities and challenges presented by the shipyard sector within the scope of Industry 4.0 transformation.