Damen Shipyards uses SAP to chart a course towards a more intelligent and sustainable maritime future.
The Dutch-based family-run maritime group has been building ships since 1927 and currently operates internationally with more than 12,500 employees and more than 35 yards across six continents. Damen combines years of craftsmanship with innovation, digitalization and operational excellence, with the goal of becoming the world’s most sustainable maritime solutions provider.
After making a significant investment in SAP S/4HANA as its core ERP foundation, Damen is now focused on applying SAP Business AI to extend the impact of its platform.
Han Coenraad, ERP Product Manager at Damen said: “We specifically use AI in our business processes to make things run more smoothly and support more data-driven decision-making.”
Damen is considering conversational capabilities to enable SAP Joule for Consultants and SAP Joule for Developers to enable employees to interact with SAP systems and processes using natural language.
Looking ahead, Damen sees opportunities to use built-in and custom AI use cases to improve data quality, enhance operational processes, and enable teams to work closer to customers faster.
One example is the use of AI to support parts sales engineers by reading customer documents from email and automatically forwarding the appropriate information to sales orders. Koenrad explained that the goal is to “reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction and build ships faster.”
Inspired by the vision of SAP Sapphire and Autonomous Enterprise, Damen is ready to take the next step. “A strategic shift away from SAP. We’re really looking forward to it and embracing it wholeheartedly. Let’s make it happen.”
