Introduction > General View of the ShipWeight System
Breakdown structures in ShipWeight are hierarchical. The reason for breaking up the project is to make more accurate estimations by trying to isolate weight groups that can more easily be compared from project to project.
Also breaking up the project gives statistical cancellation effects. This means that the different errors in the estimation of weight groups will sometimes give a higher -and sometimes a lower weight. Thus the errors will to some extent erase each other.
The figure below shows the four top levels in the standard ShipWeight break down structure. The total structure contains more than 300 weight groups divided into six levels.
The ShipWeight standard structure is the default structure. Also the US Navy “Ship Work Breakdown structure System” (SWBS) comes with ShipWeight. In addition Rig estimation breakdown structure system and General offshore breakdown structure can be delivered upon request.