ibinews.comibinews.com International Boat IndustryInternational Boat Industry || JUNE–JUNE–JULY 2019JULY 2019 6565
the latest version?”
What drove Oceanco to launch
Yachtbuilder is the growing complexity
and size of its superyachts – it builds them
from 80m-140m – and the rising number
of data users.
“At Oceanco, in only three years we
have gone from 60 to 320 users,” says IT
manager Marek Misiewicz. “To that you
must add 1,000 or so people who work for
Oceanco’s co-makers and suppliers. That is
double from eight years ago.”
“These people,” says Kouwenhoven,
“will soon have permanent access to the
information they need and can enter
data themselves. This way, we can avoid
working with outdated or inconsistent
Excel files and increase efficiency right
from the start of a project.”
Yachtbuilder provides access to yacht
data independent of the device or a
user’s location. Its phased introduction
has yielded interesting outcomes.
Kouwenhoven recalls a session with senior
Oceanco staff in which he told them
parts of Yachtbuilder “had already been
live for three months and used on our
projects. No one in that room knew that
because the system is running so smoothly.
That information made them really
enthusiastic.”
Yet challenges remain. Not
everyone in a workforce embraces
new technologies at the same time. Or
with equal enthusiasm. In deploying
a new ICT strategy, Oceanco has
discovered cultural differences must
not be underestimated. Or as well-worn
business axiom has it: Culture eats
strategy for breakfast.
“A big part of our transformation
is the people part,” says Misiewicz.
“To store data everyone must enter
the right and correct metadata, i.e.
related information about document
classification, purpose, discipline, area,
who the author is, version control
and all other relevant information.
Understanding that takes time. We are
in the middle of that process.”
“The longer we work on this digital
transformation,” adds Kouwenhoven,
“the more we realise that simply
handing people a digital tool is not the
solution. They’ll use it only once they
understand the benefits of that tool.”
On the other hand, time waits for no
one and the speed of developments in
IT is furious. “We know a shift must be
made to stay ahead of the curve, or we’ll
miss the boat,” says Kouwenhoven.
Oceanco takes a twin-track approach.
It works on both data and “knowledge”
management. The latter involves
building up, and retaining for future use
by new-build teams, specific technical
knowhow for complex projects.
Oceanco is confident its ET-eco-
system is future-proof. The Yachtbuilder
program is a central and crucial part
of that. It stays close to the Microsoft
eco-system after the US software giant
dropped its opposition to open source.
It now accepts open source software for
integration with third parties and gives
away tools for free to do that.
“Right now, we use local storage,
but increasingly we’re moving to data
to a cloud service under Microsoft
Azure,” says Misiewicz. “The cloud is
always safer than what you have on
your premises. A great deal of our data
will be there at the end of October this
year.”builtbyOceanco.com Oceanco’s new facilities in Zwijndrecht
Boats are getting bigger and more complex
Achieves 22°C
whatever
the weather
outside
photo courtesyVECO S.p.A. Giussano, Italy
+39 0362 35321 | [email protected] | veco.netCannes Yachting Festival | Sept 10 - 15
Genova Boat Show | Sept 19 - 24
Monaco Yacht Show | Sept 25 - 28