27
company was in the process of paying off its
debts, and, by the end of 1998, the company
was debt-free and employed 230 people. The
ownership of Deltamarin was by that time
already in the hands of people working in
the company. All external shareholders had
been bought out. The company had applied
a policy of engaging management members
and specialists by giving a shareholding
position. This policy had been well received
and the number of shareholders was
increasing in stages.
That same year, Deltamarin became
co-owner in the Croatian design office
Brodoplan. Mladen Merlak, one of the owners,
reminisces: “Our first contacts with Deltamarin
began at the end of the 1990s, when we met
as competitors during the train ferry Skåne
project for SweFerry at the Spanish shipyard
Astilleros Españoles in Puerto Real. Following
the bankruptcy of the Croatian design office
Brodoprojekt, the then management of
Brodoprojekt and Deltamarin came together
in 1998 to establish a new company called
Brodoplan. Alf Björkman, who at the time had
full confidence in us, played a decisive role
and had a vision of our future collaboration.
The past years of our very successful
collaboration have shown that he was right.
Working with Deltamarin has greatly helped
us to improve the quality of our work and
plan and manage projects well. The doors of
many eminent European and global shipyards
are wide open to Brodoplan. Thanks to this,
Brodoplan is now recognised as a quality
company and a desirable partner in the field of
shipbuilding design, and it has been repeatedly
honoured for its successful business.”
Deltamarin was making 100% use of its
designers’ expertise, with the best people
working in multiple projects at the same time.
This was partly out of necessity, as there was
a lack of young engineers and technicians.
The shipbuilding industry had failed to attract
new employees after the recession, and the
average age of people working for Deltamarin
was 40, which the company described at the
time as “a little worrying.”
“Internationalisation has raised the
standards of our employees’ language skills,”
said Lietepohja in the above-mentioned
interview. “You can’t overstate the importance
of language skills in engineer training.”
The Rauma office had employees ready to
work in English, Swedish, Spanish, French,
Italian, German and Russian. “These days
we often work directly with the shipowner,
which further emphasises the importance of
language skills. Design companies become
involved in the development and conceptual
design of new projects very early on, and
Mladen Merlak,
Managing Director of
Brodoplan d.o.o.