Managing fleet expansion with a single source of engineering information.
The Company
Based in the Netherlands, Royal Boskalis Westminster NV (Boskalis) is one of the world’s largest global service providers operating in the dredging, maritime infrastructure and maritime services sectors. The company provides creative and innovative solutions to infrastructural challenges, including the construction and maintenance of ports and waterways, land reclamation, coastal defense and riverbank protection. Boskalis has a versatile fleet of over 900 vessels and operates in over 75 countries across six continents.
The Challenge
To achieve continued growth and market expansion, Boskalis invested in a fleet expansion program, with a conscious effort to build ships that could guarantee a high utilization in the long term. Project management and document control systems were required to facilitate the fleet expansion program.
Significant changes in staff also created the urgent need for an effective solution to enable the retention and exchange of information. Over the last decade, Boskalis had increased its personnel by 12%, while 40% of the organization went into retirement. The intake of young engineers and departure of experienced employees meant the possible loss of valuable knowledge.
“At Boskalis, 80% of the knowledge was captured in the heads of experienced engineers. The engineers had to talk to each other to get the right information. However, in a global company, people no longer work in a single location or in the same time zone.”
The Solution
As part of the selection process, Boskalis composed a comprehensive list of user requirements for health, safety and environment (HSE), project management, management of change, and transmittal management.
After an extensive selection process, the Meridian solution was chosen for its:
- Simple user interface with role-based access and functionality
- Consolidated as-built environment and controlled project environment for new ship builds
- Standard rendering into Adobe PDF format and publication to Microsoft SharePoint
- Flexible and out-of-the-box integrations with AutoCAD and Microsoft Office
The Result
Boskalis migrated 110,000 mechanical drawings, 85,000 electrical drawings, and more than 300,000 other documents into Meridian. The solution is managed from a central location in Papendrecht, with global access to the as-built documents provided in the Microsoft SharePoint environment. With only a short training, employees were able to use Meridian and work according to quality assurance and HSE procedures.
Boskalis now has a single source of as-built information to find and retrieve all ship-related engineering information. Meridian facilitates project management for new build ships and the management of change process for existing ships.
- Project control for fleet expansion program
- Controlled management of change for operational ships
- Reduced document exchange and transmittal costs
- License to operate ensured and maintained
- Streamlined outsourced engineering activities
- Immediate access to engineering information in Microsoft SharePoint
