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the actual design work continues with the
shipyard after that.”
A major trend in the late 1990s was
shipyards reducing their role in
shipbuilding and design. An increasing
amount of work was done by a complex
network of subcontractors. However,
somebody was needed to oversee and
manage this network.
Jukka Laiterä commented on this in
the Turun Sanomat in 1998: “There’s a
great risk of shipyards losing control of
management and the vessel as a whole.
European shipyards have failed to consider
what happens when you outsource certain
functions outside the shipyard.” He added, “it’s
difficult for the shipyards to control the horde
of subcontractors.”
On the other hand, this trend of
outsourcing gave design companies an
opportunity to take over the managing role.
The first generational shift in the company
ownership took place in 2001 when a new
company structure was built and some of
the owners relinquished their positions.
At the same time, the ownership was even
further widened within the management.
Alf Björkman continued as Chairman of the
company and Jukka Laiterä became the new
Managing Director.
Markku Kanerva elaborates, “We
understood pretty early that Deltamarin had
to be able to offer services for the entire chain
of development – from the very first idea that
a shipowner has to the construction process
and launch. Other design companies didn’t
have the time or understanding to offer a
service like this. We were the first ones in the
world to do it.”
“Another thing was that shipowners
commissioned shipyards to develop their
concepts. Every shipyard had a different
design, so it was difficult to compare them. As
we had the competence, plenty of shipowners
came to us and wanted us to develop a
concept that they could take out into the
world. Sometimes there were competing
designs. We had a case in France where a
shipyard came up with a concept of their
own and the competition got pretty tough.
The French shipowner decided to do model
testing and further design on both concepts.
In the end, the ship was built based on our
design. That goes to show how crucial it
was for us to be ahead of shipyards and
We understood pretty early that
Deltamarin had to be able to offer
services for the entire chain of
development.