Over thirty contract milestones already achieved in German frigate project

Since the contract for the construction of four German F126 class frigates was signed over a year ago, the project organisation has already achieved more than thirty contract milestones. An achievement to be proud of, says Project Director Frank Verhelst. “But because we have been extremely busy in the past year, in combination with corona, we have not even had time to celebrate these highlights with our colleagues. That is a great pity,” says Frank. Meanwhile, the extensive frigate project is coming up to speed. “Numerous new colleagues have been inducted in the past year and we will soon enter the ‘engineering procurement loop’.”

“That is the phase in which technical specifications are drawn up that will form the basis for the procurement of all kinds of systems and equipment that will soon be needed for the construction of the ships,” the Project Director explains. “We call it a ‘loop’ because in this phase, information – so-called vendor data – is also supplied by the suppliers to our engineers. The ‘engineering purchasing loop’ is a crucial phase in the project and we hope to have this process on track this autumn.” In addition, the project organisation is focusing on three other issues this autumn.

These are: optimising the internal project organisation, training a large group of employees in working with the new software tool 3DX, and strengthening internal communication. “The construction of these frigates is a very large and comprehensive project, and internal communication has not always been flawless recently, both from left to right and from top to bottom,” says Frank. “This was partly due to the fact that roles within the project were sometimes divided between several people.”

“The project organisation is aware of the bottlenecks. In the coming period, we are going to pay more attention to the human factor, both in internal communication and in receiving, training and supervising team members. In addition, we are going to adjust the project organisation so that it is better suited to the scale of this project.” The F126 project is the largest frigate order in the history of the German Navy. Damen Naval is the main contractor and is building the vessels together with the German shipyard Blohm+Voss.

At Damen Naval, preparations for the construction of the four vessels are proceeding apace within a restricted environment on a protected part of the computer network. “We have already done a lot of work. The project has got off to a good start, the planning has been completed and we can look back on no fewer than 33 contract milestones since the contract was signed in June last year. An impressive achievement by the entire team. I would like to express my appreciation for what the team has achieved in the first year. The project demands a lot from the entire Damen organisation, and I also see that everyone wants to put their shoulders to the wheel to make it a success.”