15 “We have to be wary of putting too many restrictions in too soon because it’s already a complicated topic,” he says. “For instance, you may want to select a sustainable material for a specific function but there might not be any on the market. We might want to set just a few defining criteria for sustainable materials to keep it simple as we tackle this new challenge, such as durability, weight and ease of recycling. We have to be careful about running too fast and creating bigger problems than those that we’re solving.” Despite his caution, Pastorino is still committed to the need for innovation, including in sustainability. “Innovation must be the constant theme,” he says. “Our industry is good at this, NCLH is very good at it. There are still lots of areas for improvements that we need to find in shipbuilding and refit projects. Sustainability is one, and we need to keep innovating across every feature of the ship and keep looking for process improvements. I also think we need to take more time for developing the vessel in advance of works starting to help avoid unnecessary delays.” Reflecting on the success of IMA over his time there, Pastorino sees its singular focus as a major strength of its operations. “We were paid to protect our client’s investment – knowing our strengths and staying within our remit, our area of expertise,” he says. “We were the bridge between our client and the shipyard and we were absolutely dedicated to making cost effective choices, sometime modifications, that could be accomplished by the yard within the available budget.” Pastorino identifies the ability to strike a balance between the needs of the many different groups involved in a shipbuilding project as a crucial factor in a successful shipbuilding project. “The needs of these different departments can conflict,” he says. “At IMA, we had to work through compromises to find the perfect balance. We’re talking about industrial processes on a giant scale, and we’re orchestrating the input from technical operations, hotel operations, information technology, human resources, legal, refitting and almost every other team in the cruise company. If you can’t find the balance, then you can’t finish the ship. It might not be the perfect ship for everyone, but it must be the most suitable outcome for the owner.” Even for a company as experienced as IMA, achieving this balance poses a challenge on every single project. “Consistency is essential but it’s often harder than you think to achieve,” says Pastorino. “You might be working with the same subcontractors at the same yard, but the results might not be the same because changes in the workforce leads to different results. We were the constant in the projects and so we had to manage the consistency of their work.” He continues: “Our greatest characteristic in managing consistent quality is our ability to listen. The greatest compliment that we were given is that we were always fair. With these two strengths we were always able to find a path to delivering the quality of outcome demanded by the owner. There were occasions where we had to manage difficult situations with a mismatch between our interpretation of consistent quality and the yard or supplier’s view, but our reputation for consistency and fairness helped us get projects completed to the right standard at the right price.” KEYNOTE Oceania Cruises’ Marina was the first vessel designed by IMA for Oceania Cruises’
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