SLEP is the Severn Life Extension Programme; a full refurbishment of the Severn class lifeboats which are approaching 25 years old. They have been judged to be structurally sound and so with a complete replacement of all internal fittings and mechanical systems they are planned to last a further 25 years.
The SLEP design team consists of a project manager, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, naval architects and CAD technicians.
How we fit in…
We are one of the three CAD technicians supporting the engineers – primarily in our case the mechanical engineering team. They are designing mechanical systems from scratch, such as steering and heating & ventilation. This involves designing schematics, calculations, selecting materials, evaluating bought in components etc. Our role has been to prepare full CAD models, or in some cases pick up existing models started by the engineers, keep them up to date, modify them and prepare drawings based on them. As the project moves forward from a prototype phase to a production phase, our role will increasingly involve restructuring of these large full system models into the sort of manageable subassemblies favoured by production.
Moving forwards…
Covid19 changed the way everybody works and during the initial lockdown we worked from home. Utilising Microsoft Teams proved to be a very effective way to keep everybody up to date as the project progressed. Once some of the lockdown restrictions lifted we made the decision to move back to the office in Weymouth and continue working remotely. This decision was taken because a return date to the offices in Poole was looking like September at the earliest. The Weymouth office is large enough to be socially distant but enabled us to work in a proper office environment rather than a cobbled together workspace at home.
Conclusion…
This project is still on-going (July 2020) but it is exactly the sort of project where we can get involved because it has a clear project need with a definite end point. Covid19 has affected that date because production did have to stop, but design has been able to continue.