By
Rebecca Gibson |
Located within the free trade zone of Freeport on Grand Bahama Island, less than 80 miles from the Florida east coast, Grand Bahama Shipyard is strategically positioned to serve ships on transatlantic crossings, as well as those with Caribbean and eastern US itineraries. This strategic location alone gives the yard a competitive edge, but as Couser explains, Grand Bahama Shipyard does not take this for granted and is constantly having to prove itself and evolve to meet changing industry demands.
“We attribute our success to our solid work ethic, first-class facilities, rich experience and quality planning,” he says.
Indeed, as Couser notes, good planning is absolutely essential to meeting customers’ requirements and ensuring projects are completed on schedule. “We are all too aware of the financial strain on the shipping industry, as well as the passenger and charter implications, if a vessel does not go into service on time. Our approach is to communicate regularly with our base clientele to discuss future dockings and projects that they expect to undertake, and then we plan accordingly to ensure we can accommodate their requirements.”
As part of this, project managers and planners are assigned as early as possible, so that they may understand the project requirements in detail in advance and ensure the yard will have the available resources. “When carrying out repeat work, we also do our best to assign the same team,” Couser says. “This continuity reassures the client and helps the project progress more smoothly.”
Thorough planning was key to the success of Grand Bahama Shipyard’s first major revitalisation project of 2014. The yard carried out work on Royal Caribbean International’s Navigator of the Seas in 26 days, but planning actually started in December 2012. “At that time we performed a risk assessment of the overall project, which incorporated a base estimate of the days out of service that would be required and what we would have to do to enhance our facility to ensure we could handle the project,” says Couser.
One area that required attention was the yard’s logistics management processes, particularly regarding the fabrication and installation of deck structures to house new staterooms.
“We had to work out how we would handle some 700 containers in the allocated timeframe,” says Couser. “This involved meticulous method/time studies, which involved assessing our material handling capability as well as our onboard working practices.”
The result was that the yard installed an additional 40-ton crane at the dock to support the effort. It also set up sessions with the contractors – Aluship Technology was commissioned to perform the necessary aluminium work and Almaco was engaged to fabricate and install the new staterooms – to evaluate their working practices and look into how they could streamline their operation by incorporating production line methods. In the end it was decided that the best method was to have flat-packed materials sent over from Europe. They were then assembled at the yard.
“The project was a resounding success,” says Couser. “It was completed on time and the customer was pleased with the results. There’s no doubt that the effort that we put into the planning and pre-assembly stages in the 12 months running up to the drydock was time well spent.”
This article appeared in the Spring/Summer 2014 edition of International Cruise & Ferry Review. To read other articles, you can subscribe to the magazine in printed or digital formats.