Anticipating a sustainable future: how does technology change? What are the possibilities and opportunities of technology in relation to the market’s requirements? The Special and Small Craft Conference 2010 organised by SWZ Maritime, KNVTS and TU Delft sought to answer these questions.
On the 14th of April, many maritime specialists travelled to the TU Delft to participate in the Special and Small Craft Conference. Prof. M. Waas, Dean of Faculty 3mE, TU Delft, welcomed everybody, after which prof.ir. S. Hengst officially opened the conference on behalf of SWZ Maritime’s editor in chief, ir. C. Dirkse, who due to personal circumstances, was unable to attend.
Keynote Speech
The keynote speech was performed by J.J.C.M. Dooremalen. His theme was ‘Leadership is about making chocies.’ He continued to show the choices the Netherlands has made in the past and which have led to a leading position in maritime industry today, such as:
– Focussing RD&I efforts on oil and gas technology and complex specials such as dredgers, patrol, naval and offshore vessels, tugs and mega yachts.
– Aiming at a leading role in design and production through distinctive technology, competing price/quality, building on strong knowledge position, excellent cooperation and compliant with society’s demands.
According to Van Dooremalen these choices have proved right as the Netherlands has a strong position in small and special craft. In addition, the industry does not suffer as much from the financial crisis as it would have had it been dependent on the freight market and the impact of the crisis is smaller than in other EU Nations.
Stay on Track
The challenge we now face is to stay on track and develop a maritime innovation agenda. Even with the Maritime Innovation Programme, government participation remains important and with the coming elections, it is more important than ever to make sure maritime industry stays on the political agenda. Keyword to make sure we stay on track is cooperation, with the government, but also amongst shipbuilders, the offshore industry, shipowners, inland shipping, ports, knowledge institutes and so on.
Parallel Sessions
After this keynote speech, two parallel sessions started from which the participants could choose. The programme offered a wide variety of speakers that came from universities, research institutes, classification societies and leading maritime companies. They all offered their individual outlook on the future of maritime industry.
For a full list of speakers and the topics they addressed, please download https://www.swzonline.nl/download/42[the complete programme].
How to Create Sustainable Future?
How can the Netherlands maintain its position as a leading maritime specialist? Does the Netherlands have a future in maritime industry? What answers did the speakers come up with? They seemed to agree that there is definitely a future for maritime industry in the Netherlands. However, there remains much work to be done. According to the conference’s speakers the focus should be on:
– Product innovation.
– Process innovation.
– New design methods/tools; ICT/CAD technologies, systems driven design where the ship is an envelope that encompasses different technology.
– Maintaining a strong position in prototyping.
– Education; students are the future.
– Cooperation; between companies, institutes, government etc., it is easier to generate alternative solutions to a problem in a group.
– Environmental solutions; lower emissions, less fuel consumption, alternate power sources etc.
– Creating a level playing field.
– Sustainable and safe designs.
Central to everything mentioned above is knowledge; on preserving and gaining more knowledge, to stay leading by specialising in certain ship types, to have/gain more experience with these ship types, play a leading role in prototyping, stronger customer orientation, using feedback in new designs, forming partnerships and close networks and exchanging knowledge. Therefore, the future lies in knowledge.
We have also posted https://www.swzonline.nl/fotoverslag/22[a photo album of this day] on our website.
