Page 19: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 2018)

CEO Darren Larkins, been fairly diverse into naval, luxury, couver Shipyards and so on. These sort we have our eye – on that particular seg- together with President some commercial – a lot of things like of investments in shipbuilding technol- ment. There’s some other things we’re

SSI & CTO Denis Morais, fast ferries, aluminum shipbuilding and ogy and shipbuilding capability might looking at as well. acquired ownership of the shipbuilding so on. We’ve had, to use a ? nancial not exist without that local investment. software development company from metaphor, a diverse portfolio of custom- Rather than going offshore and buying How has SSI helped to forward founder Rolf Oetter effective March 1, ers and that has helped us. We’ve actu- a design from an established shipbuilder the digitalization trend in the 2018. The two longtime employees have ally been doing really well over the last in Europe or Asia, they’re investing lo- maritime sector?

been managing SSI for the past seven couple years because the naval segment, cally. That sort of thing is also happening A number of things in terms of new years and have been entrenched in all especially in the U.S., has been on a bit in Australia. We’ve had a lot of success products – I say new, but we’ve been aspects of the company’s day-to-day op- of an uptick, and the other segments in the past in Australia so we have a good working on this for years now. In the erations for even longer. Larkins, SSI’s we’ve been in haven’t been hit too much. base there to leverage with a lot of the past, and even in many shipyards today, ? fth employee in 1999, said he and Mo- But absolutely, the commercial market current aluminum shipbuilders as well there’s a lot of technology or digitaliza- rais have done “pretty much everything in Asia speci? cally has been very de- as BAE Australia. There’s a lot of good tion, if you will, going on within design that SSI does at some point. “This gives pressed. I think it is going to turn around work going on there. and engineering, but in an isolated sort us the unique ability to address the cus- slowly, but not in the next few years, or Japan is actually another market where of way. But the connections outside of tomers’ requirements to a greater degree to the levels it was at a few years ago. I we see some things going on. They ob- those departments into the rest of the than potentially larger companies where just don’t see that happening. viously were hit by the depressed ship- shipyard are still quite often paper draw- the management has no direct engage- building market as much as some of the ings, maybe electronic 2D drawings, but ment with the customer or hasn’t lived You mentioned naval shipbuild- others, but at the same time, their quality the buck stops there in terms of progress- through the day-to-day of the customers ing. Where else are you looking and the ability to build more complex ing that. We’re trying to convince many and worked with them.” for opportunities? ships has kept them a? oat. Naval ? ts shipyards to take it one step further and

In Australia, similar to the success really well into that. That’s somewhere integrate all of the rest of the shipyard

Shipbuilding has been dif? cult we’ve had here in Canada. There are a we’re looking as well. processes and departments – and I say in- of late. When you look at the number of Canadian Navy and Coast Defense or naval shipbuilding around tegrate, but really seamlessly make them market, what do you see? Guard programs that have been awarded the world, whether it be in places in part of the design engineering process so

We haven’t had a lot of presence in or are ongoing for the next 30-40 years, eastern Europe like Turkey, doesn’t gen- information, awareness of change, even some of the major Asian markets which and we’ve been very successful with all erally have the same level of volatility driving production machines automati- to a degree have been hit fairly substan- of the noncombat packages and all of as some of the other sectors. Wherever cally based on approved changes within tially by the downturn. Our success has the work being done at Seaspan - Van- naval shipbuilding is happening is where engineering and our Enterprise technol-

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