Germany: CEO Presents Future Concept for Peene and Volkswerft

The Peene shipyard in Wolgast is to be sold by the trustee to an investor over the next twelve months as it already has a fundamentally viable business model as a shipyard.

It has outstanding expertise both in terms of the repair and conversion of military and government agency ships as well as in the construction of new vessels for these purposes.

The industrial basics at the Peene shipyard in Wolgast are also very good as ships can be built here within a closed hall. Moreover, the marine centre at the Peene shipyard has a slip facility, enabling ships to not only dock out of the hall but also enabling them to dock in, for example, for repair and conversion work. This gives it a genuine competitive edge. The business model for the Peene shipyard, which also encompasses repair work on submarines, can be enhanced even further to include the repair and conversion of giant yachts.

The concept for the future of the Volkswerft shipyard in Stralsund:

Manageable operating cycle and in-depth skill restructuring

The Volkswerft shipyard in Stralsund is to be given a manageable operating cycle and undergo skill restructuring to enable it to successfully complete its move towards becoming a specialist shipbuilder. In this way, the shipyard is to be made fit for the future.

Based on the findings of the analysis that was initiated, the following would seem to be clear: the Volkswerft shipyard is at present uncoordinated. On its road towards becoming a specialist shipbuilder, it has taken on too many orders to build new ships in too short a time. Consequently, production operations were launched without sufficient planning, design documentation and work preparation. As a result, the Volkswerft shipyard has not delivered any ships since April 2011 and all delivery dates had to be adjusted in line with the industrial realities prevailing at the time. A manageable operating cycle has to be set up now. This is to be implemented in three steps:

1. The Volkswerft shipyard must have its delivery capability restored. This applies to the new ships to be built for the shipping companies Scandlines (RoPax) and DFDS (RoRo) as well as to the ice-going cargo ships for the shipping company Royal Arctic Line. This task will occupy the Volkswerft shipyard through to the 2nd half of 2013.

2. The ships that are currently in an early development phase are then to be examined. The aim here is to ensure that production operations for these ships are based on good planning, full design documentation and comprehensive work preparation.

3. For a successful future as a specialist shipbuilder, the Volkswerft’s skills and capacities are to be adjusted to a cycle of 1.5 new constructions and three newly built ships per year. This equates to productive added value of approx. 220,000 to 250,000 hours in engineering with a focus on design and systems know-how, as well as approx. one million hours in production with a shift away from steel engineering towards equipping at the Volkswerft’s facility at Stralsund and at its service providers and sub-contractors.

[mappress]

Source: P+S WERFTEN GmbH, August 21, 2012