Originally Posted by
Asturias56
But every ship is built from hundreds of pieces of kit built off site -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_26_frigate - very little is actually done on site these days
"According to Gary McCloskey, head of Type 26 supply chain at BAE Systems, by March 2017 between 40 and 50 suppliers were engaged in the Type 26 programme, and about 33 had full contracts.
[73]
On 5 April 2017 Raytheon Anschütz announced successful integration of Warship Electronic Chart Display Information System (WECDIS) into their Integrated Navigation and Bridge Systems (INBS) for the Type 26.
[74]
In July 2017 BAE Systems stated that the Type 26 programme currently employs more than 1,200 people in the UK supply chain, and in the future the programme would secure more than 3,400 jobs across BAE Systems and the wider UK maritime supply chain.
[3] It was also stated in July 2017, that coinciding with the announcement of additional contracts, total investment in the Type 26 supply chain had reached £500 million. The 14 companies awarded contracts in the July announcement include Babcock for the helicopter landing grid, MSI Defence Systems for the small caliber gun, and Thales for the towed array system. The largest of the July-announced contracts are for the procurement of structural steel for the first three ships from UK and European steel mills by Dent Steel Services Ltd."
Still - THE important thing is that they have awarded the contract - lets hope they buy more than 5 and it doesn't turn into yet another "aspiration"
Random quotes from t'internet are not a good supporting argument - you are presumably aware that integrating a piece of software into an INBS is not a shipyard task and hardly of relevance?
The supply chain has always been diverse - it means individual equipment items are built by individual companies and then delivered to the shipyard for installation to the ship (this is what "outfitting" means). Sometimes those items are installed on units / blocks (this is known as pre-outfitting or advanced outfitting), sometimes they are installed in the ship when it is erect on the berth or in the building dock. The supply of the item to the shipyard does not include the labour required to install it, connect it to the relevant services (power, cooling system, fuel, lub oil, control cabling etc - or indeed manufacture and install those services), inspect it in situ and then test commission and set to work that individual item or system. That labour is almost exclusively shipyard (sometimes contracted in subbies) but always requires more manhours the later in build you attempt the task.
"Very little done on site these days" is a very long way from the truth.