Aart Rupert
Chief Digital Officer at Damen Shipyards & CIO of the Year 2023

Damen Shipyards behind the scenes

According to reigning CIO of the Year Aart Rupert, a successful digital transformation is always a team effort. At Damen Shipyards, this fundamentally revolves around a combination of three delivery models: simplification of the IT landscape, a learning organization, and the application of new technological capabilities such as artificial intelligence. Architecture plays a key role in bringing all of this together cohesively. For his part, the Damen CDO sees his role primarily as a facilitator and coach.

During CIODAY2024, he and team members from the mentioned disciplines will discuss the principles, challenges, results, and secrets of a winning internal dynamic. “Usually, things go well because we all have the same goal in mind. But sometimes it also leads to discussions. For example, while you might prefer to work with agile principles in a learning organization for continuous improvement, replacing an outdated system with a modern cloud platform sometimes calls for a waterfall approach.”

In the interaction, according to Aart Rupert, the focus is not primarily on the CIO, as they can never oversee all involved domains alone. Traditional top-down management, and certainly cultures of fear, are neither productive nor sustainable in his view. True team spirit is essential. As mentioned, the presentation at CIODAY2024 will offer a look into the practical reality at Damen Shipyards.

Interaction
Those involved will also share insights into their interactions with partners. For example, TCS assists with the rollout of scaled agile, enabling a shift from primarily “run and build” to a new relationship and contract model. While Microsoft proves valuable for the adoption of emerging technologies, Workday, SAP, Dassault, and Salesforce play a role in the platform strategy.

As mentioned, Aart Rupert won the CIO of the Year Award 2023. He credits the award to his strategic vision on digitalization, the transformation he has initiated, and the launch of a new business unit: Damen Triton, focused on connected vessels and predictive maintenance.

With the help of platforms from industry leaders, Damen has been able to accelerate its transformation efficiently without customization. The company has transitioned to product lifecycle management, allowing it to manage the entire chain from a single data model: design, engineering, manufacturing engineering, and services. This enables Damen to respond flexibly to changes during the shipbuilding process as well as to changes in regulations.