Damen Shiprepair Gtaverken Prepared to Dominate Nordic Market

Damen Shiprepair Götaverken (DSGö) is committed to becoming the leading shipyard in the Nordic region. By following a strategy that puts greater focus on environmental initiatives, investments and new jobs, DSGö is raising the bar for its Gothenburg shipyard. Under the new strategy, the long-established Swedish shipyard Götaverken Cityvarvet is now changing its name to Damen Shiprepair Götaverken. Since 2000, the company has been part of the global Damen Shipyards Group, which is based in the Netherlands and has a turnover of 1.3 billion euro.

Damen Shipyards Group has more than 35 shipyards and related companies around the world, eight of which are dedicated to repairs, conversion and maintenance. Götaverken is the third largest of those eight. The company is one of the largest specialist ship repair yards in northern Europe.

“We are proud of our Götaverken heritage and this will naturally also be reflected in our new name. The wealth of expertise we have built up over the years, together with the many opportunities that the Damen Group offers for meeting customers’ demands, give us a very solid foundation on which to build. We will also need to take on around 25 to 30 new employees over the next two years,” comments Jos Goris, Managing Director of Damen Shiprepair Götaverken.

Strategy
The new strategy to take the number one ranking in the Nordic region has also led Damen Shiprepair Götaverken to buy up both floating docks they have been using, as well as refurbishing and making new investments at the facility in the Port of Gothenburg.

“The global economic crisis has hit shipping and the shipbuilding industry hard in Scandinavia as well. Combined with high fuel prices, this has meant that ship-owners have been holding back on repairs and maintenance. The effect for us has been stiffer competition for customers. This makes it especially important that we now invest strategically in order to meet customers’ needs as effectively as possible,” adds Jos Goris.

Offshore
The offshore industry does not seem to have been hit so hard by the economic downturn, which is partly reflected in Damen’s increased order book for offshore (wind) vessels. This goes especially for Fast Crew Suppliers, Twin Axe support vessels (able to transfer crew onto wind turbines in 2.5 m wave height) and PSV’s. Therefore, Damen Shiprepair Götaverken expects to see increased revenues from the Norwegian and Scottish offshore industry over the next two or three years.

Jobs
The company is also investing more than ever in internal communications and improving the efficiency of its organisation to promote closer involvement and gather good ideas as part of the process of continuous improvement. Thanks to its internal training programme there are excellent opportunities to advance within the company. DSGö sees this as strategically important in order to maintain and build on the existing expertise and knowhow of the workforce.

“We have created around fifteen new positions this year. We’ve done this mainly through internal recruitment, in line with our strategy, but we will also need to bring in more people from outside this year and in 2013,” concludes Jos Goris.

Damen Shiprepair Götaverken currently employs 130 people and has a turnover of SEK 300 million. Profits have generally shown an upward trend over the last five years, despite a slump in 2011 that was mainly due to the faltering market. Götaverken was founded back in 1841 under the name of Göteborgs Mekaniska Verkstad. Since the shipyard reopened in 1993 – with around 70 employees – it has completed over 1,000 contracts for the repair, maintenance and refitting of various vessels.