Innovation in Global Maritime Production 2020

Norway has a long tradition as a maritime nation in shipping, shipbuilding and maritime equipment manufacturing, and has retained a leading position globally at the start of the 21st Century. But with rising cost and increased competition from other natio ns, particularly in Asia, the industry is faced with structural changes and challenges. The solution has been increased focus on innovation that promotes new and better designs, products and services. Today the maritime industry of Norway retains a stron g knowledge and technological base, harvested from a long and innovative maritime and offshore tradition. Looking at the challenges facing the Norwegian maritime industry in the next 10 to 15 years, and the effect of distributed and global production netw orks and innovation, it is viewed as critical to develop new knowledge, methodology, theories and systems. The proposed KMB aims at developing the innovation capacity in the maritime industry and as such will contribute in the realization of these challen ges. The proposed KMB will be focused on understanding future needs and requirements, including firm level CSR and environmental challenges, development of knowledge of innovation and production processes in global business systems, and develop knowledge for innovation based modular product design. The research tasks in the KMB cover several different scientific fields as management and business-school oriented disciplines (strategy, marketing, innovation) as well as engineering disciplines as modular design and systems engineering. In-dept case studies will be an important research approach, building on well established methodologies in the social sciences. The case studies will be performed in collaboration with the business partners, with Ullstein G roup, Kongsberg Maritime and Rolls-Royce Marine AS as core companies. The Norwegian Centres of Expertise in Ålesund and Kongsberg will contribute to the project.