Annual r eport 2002 Annual r eport 2002 - Boskalis

Fast settling with BeauDrain soil
improvement technique.
“Where professionalism and high tech meet”
In his ‘Innovation Lecture 2001‘ (The Hague, 3 December 2001), the celebrated American economist
Michael E. Porter made a plea for ‘cluster innovation’:
"Innovation means more than just spending money on research and development. Innovation is driven
to a major degree by the formation of industrial ‘clusters’: concentrations of companies and knowledge
institutions with a shared area of expertise who do business with each other and who are in close geographical
proximity."
In other words, branch-based innovation, driven by
shared enthusiasm, the grouping of expertise and
creativity, and the transformation of commercial
opportunities into solutions. High-grade and local
in origin, leading and global in application.
Porter’s view of innovation has been the approach
in the dredging industry for years. Sliedrecht is the
international knowledge centre for the specialist
construction of dredgers and supplies of electronic
systems and dredging equipment. Delft houses various
scientific civil-engineering institutions. Ede is
home to the Maritiem Research Instituut Nederland
(MARIN), one of the five Major Technological
Institutes (GTIs) in the Netherlands. Dutch dredging
companies are also permanently engaged in fundamental
research, both jointly and independently.
Precision dredging with high-tech equipment.
Total solutions and
innovative contracts.
Waterway: Ship of the Year 2002.
Knowledge transfer
creates a lead.
4 Annual Report 2002