HANSA 02-2019

Schiffstechnik | Ship Technology
»We don’t want to stay in our ivory tower«
After years in the wake of the global shipping crisis, global supplier of deck and cargo
handling equipment MacGregor is transforming its business. President Michel van
Roozendaal talked exclusively to HANSA about the strategy for the future
This strategy contains a transformation
of the organisation to be more
lifecycle-oriented and therefore more
owner/operator-oriented. »That is were
the more relevant relationship is«, van
Roozendaal says. The intention is to make
it clear to investors that MacGregor has
the ambition to have one third or more of
the revenue coming from business with
the actual operators. »Overall you make
the operational characteristics of the vessel
much more predictable. As engineering
driving organization in the past, people
were so much focussed on building
beautiful pieces of equipment. The service
was perhaps not really at the same
level of priority that it deserves to be. And
that is basically what I focussed on during
the last 3,5 years«, the President emphasizes.
»In the past, we sold the equipment
predominantly to shipyards. To be lifecycle-oriented
we will be able to add value
to optimize the operational efficiency
and not least lower the carbon footprint.«
In addition and in the context of digitalization,
he sees that in the traditional maritime
industry there is a lot of scope for beta-driven
solutions. »We are participating
in that. One of our recent innovations are
fully autonomous cranes.« Van Roozendall
expects the development to be a stepby-step
evolution to autonomous shipping
with focussing on the cargo handling as
contribution from Cargotec.
One project, where the group is involved,
is »Yara Birkeland«, which will be
a fully-electric and autonomous container
feeder vessel from 2022. MacGregor provides
the mooring system, its sister Kalmar
the cargo handling equipment. Cargotec
has the objective to become a leader
in intelligent cargo handling. »Another
project is driven by local finnish operator
called ESL. Our contributions are the
autonomous cranes«, the President says.
In general, in the balance sheet of
MacGregor the value of the equipment
sales is larger than the one of the pure service.
Van Roozendaal and his colleagues
observed, that in the huge shipping crisis,
many people have held back several
maintenance investments. As supplier,
MacGregor wants to put a lot of efforts in
becoming a better partner for the customers.
According to the manager, the service
business is at a very comparable level to
before the downturn. For him, that is »in
itself positive«. Positive from his point of
view is, that there is a relatively low scrapping
level »and that means that operators
will need to maintain the integrity of the
assets«.
Roozendaal acknowledges, that
some customers try to point out where
MacGregor had challenges in the past. In
a way that is okay for him, »in terms that
we can learn. We don’t want to stay in our
ivory tower. I am sure that there were elements
where we have not delivered the
best service.« A lot of these problems were
supply chain issues in the industry. Volumes
have come down so much that certain
suppliers have focussed their attention
elsewhere. »The whole supply chain
is not that smooth than it was. We have
had a few cases where we had to perform
miracles in order to make sure that we are
supplying on time«, Roozendaal expains.
Fur suppliers it is a challenge when people
are saving money and are also trying
to postpone investments, a narrow ridge.
»Of course we have a wide range of competitors
and also lower cost competitors,
Sun Wei, Vice President, CSSC Group (right) and Michel van Roozendaal,
*President, MacGregor, announced the cooperation
but we need to always carefully balance
between what our products do for our
customers and what they cost. We need
to make sure that we don’t develop an engineering
dream that is not relevant for
our customers. However, you don’t want
to compromise safety. You need to find the
right balance that the equipment is fit for
purpose and not over-qualified«, he says.
»Participate in all these markets«
Asked about potential future markets
and the announced joint venture with
Chinese shipbuilding group CSSC, van
Roozendaal emphasizes the context,
namely the planned acquisition of the
Norwegian supplier TTS, who has several
deep contacts to China. »In China in
particular the desire of the government is
quite clear to support the maritime industry
and the way how we can participate
is to be connected to the most relevant
state-owned group of shipyards without
limiting ourselves«, he says. China,
Japan, Korea will all remain very strong
shipbuilding countries, van Roozendaal
adds. »We need to participate in all these
markets, including China, but not just in
China.« MacGregor is open for more cooperations,
the president confirms on-go-
© Cargotec
60 HANSA International Maritime Journal – 156. Jahrgang – 2019 – Nr. 2