The vision of… René Vermeulen

To be and to stay profitable is important for ship owners. Therefore it is a must to explore every possibility for improvement, especially in the light of rising fuel costs, ever stricter environmental regulations and growing attention to health and safety issues. SKF Marine Industry Service Centre, part of SKF, offers solutions to cut operating costs by providing a full range of condition-based maintenance services.

SKF Marine Industry Service Centre was founded in 1984 as Machine Support B.V., offering machinery grouting services for the shipbuilding industry. General manager René Vermeulen, working for the company since 1996: “We gradually expanded our portfolio and added alignment and other related services as well as several products. Alongside the maritime industry, we also started to work in other industries with alignment services and machinery mounting products. Next to doing business in the Netherlands, we became active abroad and established subsidiaries in Germany in 1996, the United States of America in 1999, Dubai in 2004 and Singapore in 2007.”

In 2000, the company was one of the first to be acquired by SKF, but still had the freedom to operate as a separate unit because of its specific specialties. In 2010, the step was taken to incorporate Machine Support B.V. within SKF more and the name was changed to SKF Marine Industry Service Centre. Vermeulen: “SKF is operational in all kinds of industries and with that knowledge, we try to figure out if certain procedures and products can be applied to several industries.”

Setting the standard

SKF Marine Industry Service Centre has its head office in Ridderkerk, the Netherlands, employing about 50 people. The company recently moved to a new building, which was opened on 28 November 2012. Next to that, SKF Marine Industry Service Centre has three offices abroad: they started in Dubai when the dredging of the Palm Islands was in progress,

Think ahead
and
anticipate

and there are two offices in the United States of America: one in Houma, Louisiana and one in Houston, Texas, to serve the clients in the oil and gas industry. Vermeulen: “We set the standard in Ridderkerk; here we train our people and offer support to our people abroad.

At SKF’s Business & Technology Park in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands, about 400 people from 28 nationalities develop new technologies and translate them into market demands for the global market for all kinds of industries. SKF is looking into opening maritime branches at strategic locations worldwide, like our branch in Dubai, with Ridderkerk being the expertise centre. We want to carry out the message that we can optimise the ship life cycle: we have all expertise in-house, from design and development or manufacturing and testing to installing and commissioning or maintenance and repair, but also operations and monitoring. Clients can take us on board during every moment of that life cycle and we can handle all parts of the life cycle. That is what differentiates us from other companies, we have all the expertise under one roof and also a knowledge centre nearby, which becomes especially interesting if a client wants to go in-depth regarding one specific issue. Our motto is to think ahead and anticipate, which enables us to offer complete packages.” 

For SKF, marine is an industry the company focuses on and the crisis means that the company has to get more out of the existing channels. “Fortunately,” Vermeulen states, “we operate worldwide and are therefore spread around the world. This means we have been able to keep our workflow stable so far thanks to all kinds of projects worldwide. We notice many new maintenance strategies, as repairs are being postponed, but ships still are being inspected and therefore need to be up-to-date. Another advantage we see is the fact that engineers have more time for engineering instead of being on-site at projects. This means they have time to listen to new ideas and solutions or the optimalisation of designs, which we can provide. In that way, companies can save money by modifying their designs. SKF is looking into the possibilities of becoming a part of these design teams. With perfected designs, an after market is created, which in turn is interesting for the distributors because of the spare parts. A crisis is very dynamic, we become the partner to, together with the clients, optimise procedures and designs. Our knowledge about other industries is very useful for that, too, as we are able to compare solutions for similar problems in other industries.” Nonetheless, SKF Marine Industry Service Centre has taken some measurements to endure the crisis, says Vermeulen: “We are evaluating what we can add to our portfolio as we did in our early days -especially on the service-side as we already offer many products and the first priority is to see what is the best way to put these into the market before expanding our product portfolio -, to make sure we can keep on distinguishing ourselves. And we have the advantage that a big, well-known company – SKF – is backing us up. However, this proves to be a challenge, too; how can we make sure we can use this to show ourselves more? The maritime business is a very specific and special world and we want to spread our vision over the whole world together.”

You can’t learn everything from books

We look for
MacGyvers

Sustainable measurements

Sustainability is an important factor, for SKF as a whole as well as for SKF Marine Industry Service Centre. Vermeulen: “SKF is very conscious about having a minimal impact on the environment, thus sustainability and energy saving have their attention. They not only aim for zero negative impacts, but even try to exceed the ‘zero’ target by contributing positively to the environment. The SKF-office in Nieuwegein is working on a project to obtain a certificate to get the maximum out of sustainability. Also in our office in Ridderkerk, we pay attention to a sustainable working environment: we have an installation to win back heat, replaced the lights with energy saving lights and installed motion sensors for the lights. Also, we have a lease car policy, which says that these cars can’t have more emission that 150 grams, so some less sustainable brands can’t be chosen and this policy gets stricter every year. We are very proud of our new location: it has the look and feel of a ship and is very open, which is important as we work as one team. It is a marine team effort and we want to show that.”

SKF Marine Industry Service Centre is always looking for talented personnel. “We prefer mechanical-schooled people with affinity with electronics, we look for a mix. It is difficult to find that right mix in people, everyone is looking for the same talents. We have a lot of interns in our company, we aim to have at least one intern per department, and of course we hope they want to stay with us afterwards. To have a hands-on mentality is important, as interns don’t only watch, they work alongside our employees and they get a lot of responsibilities. But of course we depend on what is on offer. Mainly, we try to interest students of higher vocational education institutes to do an internship with us. Our company operates worldwide, which means it is important for our employees to speak other languages, English, but also German, but German is less and less well spoken.

New employees are trained on the spot, as you can’t learn everything from books, improvisation and a high level of independence are essential for our job. Our people in the field are our eyes, but also our ambassadors, so we expect a lot from them. After finding the right people, the next important issue is how to keep them within the company. We want creative people, who see links, who think about how things are connected and how they work. Therefore, we look for MacGyvers, who can create something out of nothing and who are very self-reliant. For such people we have many possibilities to grow within the company.”

Gail van den Hanenberg