Lean Production System is one of the most successful production systems in the world. Its success generated a shift in manufacturing around the world. Manufacturers in all industries from automotive to aircraft to paint to computers and on and on, are moving to a different production system called Lean Manufacturing. The world manufacturers made great progress with "lean thinking". The author of this dissertaiton with lean thinking have studied the production system of Japanese shipbuilders and concluded a modern shipbuilding system, the Lean Shipbuilding System.Lean Shipbuilding System starts thinking from eliminating the non-value added process of shipbuilding in order to clear up the wastes and save the resources for raising the productivity and reducing the cost. Lean Shipbuilding touches upon all sectors of the shipyard management, including marketing & development, design & engineering, business & production, planning & controlling, human resources, material purchasing, financial affairs, facility & safety management, and so on. With the most of lean principles with shipbuilding distinction, this dissertation describes the lean practice in detail for Chinese shipbuilders, such as product value chain analysis, zero inventory management, just-in-time & level production, one-piece flow manufacturing, takt time, mass customization, pull planning system, four Ss, built-in quality, flexible labor, motivated employee, total plant control, etc. The focus of this paper is to provide and introduce the Lean Shipbuilding System to Chinese shipyards.The first chapter of this dissertation analyses the current Chinese shipbuilding situation and points out that the high cost and low productivity are two main obstacles in the way of Chinese shipbuilding development. The Lean Shipbuilding System can provide an ideal approach to remove these obstacles. The second chapter elaborates the principles of the Lean Shipbuilding System. The third chapter discusses the lean shipbuilding work breakdown structure in detail through the shipbuilding process. The fourth chapter analyses the lean shipbuilding value chain by means of Value Engineering methods. The fifth chapter describes the planning and control system of the Lean Shipbuilding. The sixth chapter introduces the theory and methods of shipbuilding accuracy control. Last but not the least; the seventh chapter introduces the application of total plant control in shipyard management, where the 4S's are the most important management tools. The last chapter offers an example of the lean shipbuilding application in a successful shipyard.In the trend of rapid development of Chinese shipbuilding today, the author think that with the advantage of low labor cost, the Lean Shipbuilding System will help Chinese shipbuilders to establish a kind of modern shipbuilding system, which contains high technology, good profitability, low resource consumption and environment protection. If the Chinese shipbuilders keep doing so, soon or late, China will become the largest and strongest shipbuilder in the world.