How the Largest MENA Shipyard Brought Its Vision to Life with an Industrial Digital Twin 

Discover how NNTC built an industrial digital twin for the largest MENA shipyard, helping teams showcase infrastructure, shipbuilding capabilities, and maritime operations.

Large industrial sites are hard to explain with static visuals, especially when they span multiple operating zones, production facilities, and maritime assets. For shipyards, that problem affects sales, stakeholder communication, and strategic planning.

In this project, NNTC worked closely with the shipyard to build an industrial digital twin that transformed a complex physical environment into an interactive digital platform. The result was a scalable 3D experience that helped the client present its infrastructure, shipbuilding capabilities, and long-term vision in a more visual and practical way.

Digital twin overview of the full maritime complex.

The Challenge of Showcasing a Modern Shipyard :

The client had a bold ambition: to position itself as one of the most advanced maritime complexes in the world. But communicating that vision clearly was not easy.

The shipyard covers around 5 km² and stretches 4 km along the coastline. It includes multiple operational zones, dry docks, production facilities, logistics areas, and more than 15 piers and wharves that support shipbuilding, maintenance, repair, and offshore fabrication activities.

Explaining an ecosystem of that scale through traditional presentations was extremely limiting.

Leadership teams needed a better way to present the shipyard to investors and strategic partners. Commercial teams needed a stronger tool for exhibitions and customer meetings. Event teams needed a format that was easier to transport and more engaging than physical models.

Physical mockups were expensive, difficult to update, and limited in the level of detail they could present. That became even more important when showcasing major products such as jack-up oil rigs, which can take up to 36 months to build and are often planned years in advance.

The shipyard needed more than a visualization. It needed a digital platform that could communicate scale, operations, and future potential in a way static media could not. 

A large-scale digital view of the shipyard helped communicate the size and complexity of operations.

The Solution: A 3D Industrial Digital Twin Platform

To address this, NNTC designed and developed a 3D industrial digital twin platform that brought the shipyard into a single interactive interface.

The platform allows users to explore the full shipyard environment in a visual and intuitive way.

Stakeholders can move across the site, navigate key zones, and understand how infrastructure, assets, and operations connect across the broader maritime complex.

The digital twin includes detailed visualization of:

• Dry docks
• Production facilities
• Logistics and support areas
• Administrative buildings
• Major maritime assets and shipbuilding outputs

Beyond the site itself, the platform also showcases the shipyard’s core capabilities, including:

• Jack-up rigs
• VLCC vessels
• Offshore support vessels
• Maintenance, repair, and overhaul operations

This turned the shipyard from a difficult-to-explain industrial environment into an accessible and immersive digital experience.

Key Features of the Shipyard Digital Twin :

Interactive 3D shipyard visualization :

Users can explore the site in a fully digital format rather than relying on static maps or physical models. This makes the scale of the shipyard easier to understand for customers, suppliers, investors, and visitors.

Operational zone navigation :

The platform enables users to move through different areas of the maritime complex and inspect how each zone supports shipbuilding and maintenance activity.

Product and capability visualization :

Instead of describing outputs in abstract terms, the solution visualizes the shipyard’s major products and service capabilities directly within the environment.

Production workflow animation :

NNTC added animated process flows to show how major maritime products move through production. Users can follow stages such as:

• Steel plate cutting
• Block assembly
• Equipment installation
• Painting
• Ship launching
• Sea trials
• Delivery

Interior-level detail for selected assets :

The first phase also included detailed interior views for selected facilities and administrative spaces, giving stakeholders a closer view of how specific environments function inside the broader industrial site.

The digital twin gave visitors an interactive way to explore the shipyard at events and presentations.

Project Approach and Delivery :

One of the strongest parts of this project was the delivery speed.

The first phase of the industrial digital twin was completed in an accelerated 30-day timeline. That initial release included the full shipyard complex plus detailed interiors for selected spaces such as a production workshop and the headquarters building.

But this was never treated as a one-off visualization project.

From the beginning, NNTC and the client approached it as a long-term digital platform. This approach gave the client immediate value for commercial use while preserving flexibility for future operational use cases.

Business Impact of the Industrial Digital Twin :

Better sales and exhibition support :

One of the fastest gains came in sales and marketing. Instead of transporting large physical models to exhibitions, the shipyard could use a portable and interactive platform to present the full complex and its capabilities.

At events, visitors can explore vessels, inspect infrastructure, and understand shipbuilding workflows in a more hands-on way. That creates a stronger first impression and makes technical discussions easier.

Stronger stakeholder communication :

For complex industrial organizations, one of the biggest obstacles is explaining how everything fits together. The digital twin helped leadership and commercial teams communicate the size, sophistication, and strategic value of the shipyard more clearly.

More engaging customer and partner experience :

Potential customers and suppliers were no longer limited to slides or verbal explanations. They could interact with the shipyard digitally, which improved understanding and made conversations more concrete.

A foundation for broader digital transformation :

Although the first use case focused on visualization and communication, the platform was designed to support more advanced applications over time, including:

• Logistics optimization
• Safety simulations
• Workforce training
• Operational planning

That makes the project not just a showcase tool, but a base layer for a broader maritime digital transformation journey.

A partnership focused on innovation :

For NNTC, the project demonstrates how industrial digital twin technology can help complex organizations present, understand, and evolve their operations in new ways:  

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with IMI and support their vision of becoming the shipyard of the future. The development of this industrial digital twin solution is just the beginning of our partnership, and we are looking forward to working with IMI to further develop the solution. The vast number of digital assets developed during the project will be repurposed for other use cases to help IMI achieve their ambitious goals. We are excited to see where this partnership takes us and the impact it will have on the shipbuilding industry.” Says Dmitry Doshaniy, GM of NNTC. 

For the Largest MENA Shipyard, the initiative supports its ambition to lead innovation in shipbuilding and maritime infrastructure and is a material confirmation to their slogan “Shipyard of the Future”. 

Together, the teams created a platform that showcases the shipyard’s scale and capabilities today, and also supports its long-term journey toward smarter, more connected industrial operations.