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Since mid-January, the core team of the Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigates (ASWF) project has had access to a centrally located shared office space in the Damen Naval building in Schiedam. The people from Damen Naval and the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) who make up the core team are happy with the arrangement. Face-to-face contact with each other is simply more pleasant than communicating via e-mail or online meetings, say team members Bob de Smedt of Damen Naval and Paul Everts of DMO. In the brand new joint location, the two are currently working with their colleagues to accelerate the process towards a construction contract for the frigates.
Paul Everts of DMO (left) and Bob de Smedt of Damen Naval.
“Because of Covid, we as a core team have often had to work remotely in the last two years,” says Bob de Smedt. “We communicated via Skype, Teams or e-mail and we found that this was not always ideal. We just wanted to see each other more often. That is why it was so convenient that the Damen Naval office in Schiedam still had some space available. We now have a nice office on the fourth floor with meeting rooms where the core team is present a few days a week and also where we can invite experts involved in the project.”
Bob: “On Fridays, the ASWF project leaders meet in Schiedam. On busy days, some fifteen to twenty people work here, and it is expected that this number will increase even further.” ASWF is the project name of the ship class that will replace the current four multipurpose frigates (M-frigates) of the Karel Doorman class in the Dutch Royal Navy and the Belgian Naval Component. Bob is happy with the new Schiedam office because it has “an added value compared to communicating via a computer screen”. He continues: “It just all goes a bit smoother when you can just walk up to talk to someone.”
The reception area in the new building.
Paul Everts can only agree with the words of Damen Naval’s Proposal Manager. On behalf of DMO, Paul is Project Manager for the shipyard part of the ASWF project, which is currently in the product definition phase. “You notice that sometimes misunderstandings arise in e-mail contact,” says Paul. “It just works better if you can actually meet each other, then you can work together as a team much more efficiently and therefore with more fun, and you can react faster.” In the past few months, people have worked hard on making the new joint location a comfortable place to work with a pleasant atmosphere.
"We now have a nice office on the fourth floor with meeting rooms where the core team is present a few days a week and also where we can invite experts involved in the project.” Bob de Smedt
Face-to-face contact with each other is simply more pleasant than communicating via e-mail or online meetings.
The informal moments have also been thought of, say Bob and Paul. “It is important that you can also meet informally at the coffee machine,” says Bob. Paul adds: “That’s why we’ve brightened up the coffee corner a bit. We have also hung up posters about the project in our office, and we have made a Spotify playlist to which we invite everyone to add music to be played during work. And for those who like to throw darts, there is a dartboard.” Paul and Bob think that the location of the new office in Schiedam is perfect.
The Schiedam office has a comfortable, light and airy cafeteria.
“It is actually the best of both worlds. Vlissingen is just a little too far away for DMO, while the defence locations are just a little too far away for Vlissingen. This is an ideal location between the two,” says Bob. Around Christmas last year, everything was prepared for the commissioning of the new workspace. It was particularly important to dot the i’s and cross the t’s in terms of information security, as the core team works with classified data. A secure working environment had to be created, both digitally and physically. The people of Damen Naval now have a connection to the secure network that was already in use in Vlissingen, and the DMO colleagues can access the Defence network via WiFi.
Bob and Paul are delighted with the new joint location, because building a ship is a collaborative process and there is plenty of room for meeting people in the Schiedam office. Paul: “It is also nice to get to know the people you deal with on a daily basis a little better. And for me it is now only a half-hour bike ride to work. That is never a bad thing…”
The ASWF project has dedicated offices and meeting rooms on the fourth floor.