A GLANCE OF MANAGEMENT BUSINESS IN THE NAVAL, MARITIME AND RIVERINE INDUSTRIES

Benchmarking appears nowadays as a very good opportunity to know different ways of making  same activities, in such a way that the construction of "bridges" is facilitated, shorting the way to reach the same goal.

This subject, framed in COTECMAR within the program of Environment Monitoring, is facilitating the consolidation of our long terms goals and the development of a new dream, in which no longer we are spectators at world-wide level, but participants involved in the economic development of the world.

The departure point to assimilate new ways of doing diverse activities has a root in the "attitude of change". It is necessary to want it and with it have a good ingredient of humility to recognise that different and better ways to reach a result are available nowadays.

The challenge of changing attitude could be that high that the only draft to frame it  is a very expensive project, nevertheless, the cost of keep the “status quo” is more expensive than move into another stage.

The opportunity of benchmarking that COTECMAR has had with DAMEN; a Holding well know in Netherlands, with 34 companies around the world, 75 years of experience in the shipbuilding and naval repair market, and with high qualify personnel in all its areas, it has allowed a glance of the business at world level in the naval, maritime and riverine industry, through the research of its process and procedures, as well as its results.  

The processes and procedures analysed by 5 COTECMAR employees, in the areas of planning management, finance planning, estimation cost, system information, logistic, production and project management, have allowed us to conclude that in general terms, COTECMAR and DAMEN do the same, have the same problems, expect the same results and we even have the same dreams. The difference is that the 75 years of experience that DAMEN has, have allowed them to find a different way to do things, to solve problems and, at the end, a shorter way to obtain the results. But the journey does not end here. Its Vision continues, its grow is latent, its knowledge keeps expanding and although its success add more than its mistakes, these last ones are part of the human nature, as well as is the culture of DAMEN, not to stay on them, but overtake them.

What we can see as glance today, with this training, is just the top of the ICEBERG, its results, achievements, and successes. To amuse oneself on the top of the ICEBERG is the natural tendency and we could take all the time that is necessary just talking about it. Nevertheless, the goal of this short training, was oriented to take a quick look to what it could be the base of the ICEBERG; a history of 75 years of building dreams, which of course is not that easy to summarise.      

¿What is behind each achievement and success?. Without a doubt we did not need to come to the Netherlands to find out that any dream that one has in life needs to be work on and the construction of this, demands discipline, determination, dedication, constancy and faith, to obtain at the end what is expected. DAMEN is not different; the process is the same worldwide.

The strong value of this experience is centred in the opportunity to touch the structure and to listen the stories directly from the actors. The result of this, is assimilated as a lubricant that allows to fasten the materialisation of the dreams or as a tool that allows to shorten the way to the final goal.

Here under will see some of the analysed points

STRATEGIC VISION

Behind that structure that today seams so natural, hides the history of the DAMEN family; a family from Netherlands, hard-workers, that lived minute after minute the natural difficulties of building a company; the lack of resources, the extreme austerity, extensive working hours, successes, expensive mistakes and all these, inside a controversial surrounding that was the first world war, the economic recession and the second world war, lived intensely in Europe. All this situations, of course unpredictable and uncontrollable at the entrepreneur level, but enhance and overcome by the management creativity.     

Nowadays, on the top of the ICEBERG it is possible to read an easy strategic vision but with a challenging solidity that is transmitted to all its workers so the construction of the corporate dream, turns out to be not only a reality, but also part of the personal expectations. 

Its strategic vision has lasted for decades and the royalty can be appreciated in the achieved results. This vision can be summarised in 3 expressions: 1. Enterprise spirit, 2. Product standardisation, 3. Determination in the business expansion.

The Enterprise Spirit was felt in the DAMEN family since the beginning of the 20 century and from then has been hereditary to the following generations. This “management  thinking”  is highlighted by the integration of all the organisational areas,  I mean, not only technical areas, so it has allowed the combination of all the disciplines that an organisation needs to succed, in such a way that the correct combination of these areas (Management, Commercial, Production, Personnel, Supply, Finance) increase the enterprise result.

It is important to highlight that the “enterprise coherence”, has played an important roll; meaning that the assigning of responsibilities in the different areas, goes together with the assigning of resources for the development of the previous ones. Without this coherence it would not be possible to generate enterprise.

This enterprise spirit is feed with a determining international vision that pulls the Holding. Here is were the management creativity is born.  New forms of doing business arise in order to go far away without moving, to satisfy clients no matter in what part of the world they are and produce in the more convenient place in the world.  As consequence this roaming of business generate profits for the Group that allows to fulfil the dream of expansion.

The Product Standardisation demands a great discipline, perseverance, constancy, insistence. Mr. DAMEN has shown to the World that these virtues applied, generate results. To start an activity,  to make it better, to make it almost perfect and to optimise it and during this process  do not getting tired, do not stop in the middle, do not thinking that was enough, it is the assumed enterprise challenge. It took years for DAMEN to build the tasks, the activities, the process, the procedures and the challenge to make it better still alive.  

Here is, where the benchmarking plays an important roll and where is profitable if you want to make a financial analysis of it. To be able to see the applicability of a procedure that took decades to be built in order to be what today is and once “it has been analysed”  have the opportunity to adapt it, could save millions for a company.

COTECMAR has built in 6 years, what it would take other companies 20 years. The secret; “benchmarking applied”. We don’t have to repeat the mistakes, but assimilate the achievements and in this way saving time and money.

If a procedure after the analisis, can be adaptable, it is important in a management level to realise that it will take time. Not the 20 years that could have taken the correct structure of a procedure, but a considerable amount of time in the implementation of it, taking into account that any adaptation includes a cultural change that must be worked.

The registration of the procedures at an strategic level, does not have in DAMEN the formality that is use in the Latin culture and the main reason is that the rotation of personnel is almost nail, meaning that the personnel have between 15 an 35 years in the company and the “know how” has been built and remains in the company.

In this sense, in a company with a moderated or high personnel rotation, it is necessary to build a structured track of the taken decisions, so that, the followers could have a tool to better understand and continue with the former policies and not returning to the start point every time when the personnel is moved. Nevertheless, the good tracing and good structure cannot make up the big weakness that a moderated or high personnel rotation can produce, however a strategy like the one mention could help to compensate this problem, but the risk of having to start again is always there so the important point is being aware of it and build the right strategy in order to be quiker to the changes and do not loss money in this process.

To cross the cultural barriers at an international level is a guide line included in DAMEN long term strategic, named as “Determination to business expansion”. This can be seen with its achievments: 18 companies in Netherlands, 8 in Europe (Belgium, Poland, Roumania, Sweden, Ukraine, England), 5 in Asia (Singapore, China, Vietnam), 1 in Central America (Cuba), agreements of technical cooperation with more than 60 countries worldwide and its development follows its track.

The knowledge of the international market, has been built during years through its sales force.  The strategy is clearly focus in the clients, so that it becomes drastically important for DAMEN employees to talk the same language as the clients, to assimilate the culture and to know the needs of the customers in his own country. In this way, it becomes an expensive strategy but proven effective one. 

To finish this part, I would like to highlight five factors that I consider to be the pulling points of DAMEN success:

a.         Permanent leadership
b.         Fidelity to the dreams
c.         Integral management vision (technical, administrative and international)
d.         Fast decision making and activity delegation
e.         Discipline and Constancy

MATRIX STRUCTURE

The practical way that the oral and writing communication is assumed, is a different point when talking about  Latin culture. Its horizontal structure, with short communication channels, simple, fast and logical process are part of the European behaviour, different from the Latin culture that requires an important degree of formality and a more pyramidal journey to get to the final decision. This matrix scheme adopt by DAMEN Group, without a doubt, saves fixes cost,  but it is very important to point out that this is a complex cultural construction that took decades to be built and is not only a company culture but it involves a complete country or better a continent.

The matrix organisation allows us to see the orientation to the external client, where the sales department acts not only as initial contact with the client, but as the puller of the corporate development. On the other hand,  this matrix scheme gives power to the Project Mangers, to act like that, in other words as “Managers”, allowing them to manage all the information produce by the project and give the personalised attention to each client as they expect.

In this sense the Project Managers have an appropriate academic level and the experience that this responsibility demands.

To think in a plane organisation, matrix, with horizontal communications inside the Latin culture, does not have to do with an instruction, or with the change of procedures, nor with the design of the organisational structure that allows a reading of this type of scheme.

Without a doubt, to build this type of structure, must start from the bottom up and must be approach as a project of cultural change than as an organisational change, knowing that the time is compulsory for the right construction of a culture.

The theoretic frame indicates us that on the base of the cultural platform we can find the values.  On this “Values”,  the actions, small and big, are developed.  When the actions are combined together, these form the “habits”.  When the habits join together these form a custom, in such a way that the group of customs are known as a culture.

Considering this, the small and big actions are the base of the final destination and for this reason where the works must start.

This organisational scheme has given the expected results, obtaining the proportional profit, not only for the DAMEN group, but for the team workers which are the personnel, suppliers and partners.

As conclusion of this part, I would like to point out the following:

1. A cultural change is not easy, for this reason it is necessary to structure a cultural Project. The project must be strong in its first charter related to the diagnosis, which gives the tools to design the right strategy to achieve the change.  A chapter about communication channels, information flows and procedures are also required.   This cultural project must be part of the “Information Management”.

2. The clarity of the rules given to the “coworkers” allows the action to be faster and generates better results. In this way it is important to determine clear guide lines regarding benefits, prizes and fair punishments.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

The Management of the Information in DAMEN seems to flow in a right and easy way. Nevertheless, the structure of its reports, its connectors, and the interrelations has an important degree of complexity, which can only bee seen when searching its bases. The culture allows this to flow with no problems, but the assimilation of this platform (not referring to software), is not suggest in a company even in the same country, considering that we are talking about a matrix model tailored in detailed with a personalised touch.

To structure the process and procedures was not easy. This is the subject that demands more patience. Building a culture takes time as it was already mentioned.

The system platform used in the Holding has a high degree of complexity and a complicated connectivity degree. At the moment all the yards have different ERP’s and a lot of own developments and excel is the most used and understood tool, so that, the final reports for the President are structured in excel, feed by all the existing software’s.  

At the moment the entrepreneur group has started a Information System project, oriented to the consolidation and connectivity of all the information systems used in its 34 companies.

As a conclusion of this part, I would like to mention 5 points:

1. The Information Management is not a software.

2. The most important stage to guarantee the administrative solidity is related to the right structure of the process and procedures. So the layout of the procedures is compulsory to understand the generation of value in the chain and makes the decision making easier.  It is important to leave a track of this stage, since this is the one that will allow to have solid bases to face a software supplier. This stage unfortunately is slow but compulsory and the result cannot be seen right away, but it is the foundation of the ICEBERG that determine the future of a company.

3. The discipline, patience and certainty are virtues needed to be able to take this information management Project to a tangible finish line.
4. No matter which ERP is chosen, it will always be necessary to make own developments, since each company is different and requires to make adjustments.  These developments are successful depending on the group of well enable engineers and with entrepreneur vision, which the organization shall count.

1. An Information Management project must go along with a cultural change project, which makes the assimilation of new ways of doing things, much easier.

As a general conclusion, must point out that “benchmarking applied” is a right tool used by entrepreneurs to shorten the ways of success.

Angélica Camelo Daza
Administradora de Empresas - Colombiana - [email protected]