How Damen Shipyards is navigating towards efficient data management

Damen Shipyards, a global leader in the maritime industry, is strongly focused on innovation, sustainability, and customization. The company’s mission is to contribute to a more efficient and sustainable maritime sector through its ship designs and solutions. Aligned with these ambitions, Damen also recognized that it needed to avoid its IT infrastructure would be left behind.

With a global network of various business units and systems, Damen faced the challenge of managing master data centrally in outdated software. Fragmented workflows resulted in inefficient processes, highlighting the need for a reliable, unified source of information. In line with its vision to create a future-proof organization, Damen sought a solution to support its business units, harmonize processes, and improve data quality. The need to avoid fragmented workflows, combined with the necessity to ensure output to downstream systems, made the development of a centralized, automated solution both challenging and essential. 

Damen was in a transition period where multiple applications were being added while others were being phased out. At the same time, existing processes needed to continue functioning efficiently and at the same high quality. A workflow automation solution would be an ideal outcome, allowing repetitive tasks to be streamlined and enabling efficient collaboration across multiple users.

Damen assembled a multidisciplinary team to find the right solution that would ensure efficiency and allow for centralized data monitoring and management. To create a ‘single source of truth’ for all business units, they decided to replace the existing legacy system with the Stibo Systems STEP MDM solution. Stibo Systems STEP provides the scalability and integration capabilities Damen needed to manage and distribute their parts data more efficiently.

This implementation achieved the following key objectives: 

• A ‘single source of truth’ and centralized data management for component data.
• An efficient, harmonized workflow process for all business units.
• Improved data quality. 

Stibo Systems STEP enables Damen to automate much of the work within the workflow, ensuring that the process is well-organized from start to finish. By implementing automation and validation steps, Damen can guarantee that the output is consistent and of high quality. 

After a selection process, Damen chose SQLI to guide them in the implementation of Stibo Systems STEP. With over 15 years of expertise in PIM and MDM solutions, SQLI brought technological expertise and support at every stage of the project. SQLI’s pragmatic approach helped Damen address both the technical challenges and the process-related issues that emerged during the transition period. 

Damen and SQLI began their collaboration with an intensive discovery phase, during which SQLI worked closely with various Damen teams to understand their business processes and requirements. The complexity of the existing application landscape posed immediate challenges for the team. Thanks to an agile working methodology, SQLI was able to quickly adapt to Damen’s dynamic needs. In an environment where changes were frequent, this was crucial to the project’s success. In addition, SQLI's frequent on-site presence ensured quick communication and enabled swift decision-making.   

Throughout the implementation, SQLI guided Damen’s team in training key users, ensuring Damen could eventually work independently with the new MDM solution. 

This combination of technical expertise and a pragmatic approach resulted in a smooth implementation process. Regular alignment between the teams led to a solution that seamlessly matched Damen’s needs. 

Thomas Krijnen and Deraldson Franciska

The future with SQLI and Stibo Systems

The application landscape is constantly evolving, and new opportunities continue to arise. Damen is expanding and looking ahead to further integrations of the MDM system into other parts of the business, such as supplier and customer data, with a continued focus on data quality and sustainability. SQLI will remain a long-term partner to support Damen throughout this process. 

“We see SQLI’s role as twofold: not only do they have an implementation role, but they also actively think alongside us. They keep us informed about upcoming developments and share valuable insights from their experiences. At the same time, they provide support with more complex system configurations, which helps us address challenges more effectively.” – Deraldson Franciska, Product Owner Stibo Step, Master Data Management, Damen Shipyards.