Knowledge Center - Purpose

At Goodearth, knowledge has been the key to our evolution. We believe in understanding the variables in our environment and set our strategies based on the most significant ones. As the environment changes, these variables change and therefore as an organization we need to continuously evolve ourselves. By setting up a vibrant research community at a physical and intellectual proximity to India's leading technical institution, we look forward to make ourselves more resilient. We look at this unit not only as the path leaders for innovation and bringing in continuous change to our operating fundamentals, but also as our ambassadors for creation and dissemination of knowledge to our community.

Knowledge center will start its activities around 1st November from IIT Madras Research Park.

Description of project activities proposed at Research Park

• Research and development for setting up a Greenfield Shipyard at Cuddalore, Tamilnadu. - This will include deciding on the most efficient layout for the yard, optimization of equipments capacities, buffer spaces, balancing manpower requirements, research on planning and scheduling techniques and arriving at a build strategy suitable for skill level of Indian workers and other local conditions.
• Productivity research for continuous improvement at shop floor in the shipyard - Reducing material movement time, reducing rework and waiting times for shipbuilding operations are the prime focus of this project. This will directly assists our new building program at HSL.
• Efficient ship operations - This project aims to develop mathematical/analytical tools for identifying the right cargo, most efficient routes and most economical ship operation procedures for the GML fleet.
• Developing indigenous ship design - This project will focus at developing suitable designs which will provide most cost effective sea transportation solutions for industries and business needs. In-house availability of contemporary market inputs from commercial operations and know how from shipbuilding, gives an unmatched competitive edge to the team. This project will serve in house needs and may be utilized for revenue generation at a later stage.
• Exploring the viability of Coastal transportation - Rapid growth of industries and consumption requirements of increasing population would require additional mode for transportation in India especially near the coasts. The company would be exploring various combinations of inter-modal transport and devise fast and affordable logistics solutions.
• Exploring the concept of a Green Shipyard - Need of leaving behind smaller footprints will require efficient methods for scraping the old ship and building the new ship with minimal energy consumption. This will require use of several recycling methods, use of renewable energy sources and a modular construction for the ship. The organization wants to explore these ideas through this project.
• Study of metals and alloys for usage in shipbuilding - This project will entail exploring material sciences and metallurgy fundamentals to arrive at most suitable materials and processes for various applications in shipbuilding.

Current R&D

The organization has a dedicated research wing pursuing productivity improvement for the shipping and shipbuilding industry at Chennai and Visakhapatnam. This includes research work for ship operation, shipbuilding, ship design and shipyard development.

Areas of competency developed by this team are.

• Evaluating and suggesting suitable build strategy for yard based on throughput requirements, shipyard layout, equipment capacities, technology availability and product mix targets.
• Capacity planning for yard and constrained spatial resources.
• Basic and production design for ship.
• Production planning and scheduling for shipbuilding.
• Improving material flow by reducing transfer times and waiting times for components.
• Conversion projects and repair jobs for ships, off shore vessels and Oil rigs.
• Fabrication, consolidation, outfitting and commissioning of ships.
• Mathematical modeling for ship operations
• Financial modeling for maritime operations