New AI Platform Facilitates Knowledge Transfer in Shipbuilding

Dolgo, a new maritime tech start-up spun out of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Ocean Enterprise Accelerator, has announced the development of a new AI software platform that aims to transform shipyard skills training.  

Florida based Dolgo says the software will retain expertise presently being lost as large numbers of workers retire from the sector. Dolgo is presently undertaking trials of the prototype Large Language Model (LLM) with the University of South Florida College of Marine Science. The LLM enables workers to share knowledge, allowing companies to scale up skills for both new and existing roles.  

Dolgo founder Nithesh Wazenn said the software will enable shipyards to create a private LLM platform that continuously updates with proprietary knowledge from their workforce. Workers will be able to call each other on the platform to seek advice on engineering problems, with the AI learning on the job.

The software is being launched to support skill retention in the global shipyard sector. In the US alone the average age of the 146,500 strong US shipyard workforce is 55. The aging workforce challenge is compounded by rising shipyard demand which is expected to more than double in the US over the next decade.

In addition, turnover of younger workers is high with shipyards reporting attrition rates of 20% leading to a growing skills gap and persistently high training costs.

Wazenn said the Dolgo software further aims to tackle the long-standing issue of “ownership” of know-how. He said shipyards are reporting that older workers can be reluctant to share valuable knowledge to younger workers being paid the same wage leading to a ‘race to the bottom’ as new workers skills cannot replace those retiring.  

He said the AI will incentivize workers to share expertise where the engineers are equitably rewarded with bonuses or benefits each time their knowledge is downloaded from the platform.

Wazenn said the platform can further be deployed in new and emerging maritime technologies like autonomous vessels where the highly specialized nature of the work means there is a significant skills shortage in the sector.

The Dolgo software platform will officially be launched in February at the Blue Innovation Symposium in Rhode Island.