Yards Moving Forward - GL Group

“made in Germany”
PHOTOS: MICHAEL HOLLMANN
It is well known that, in striving for perfection, Germans
tend to complain a lot – and German managers are no
exception. The leaden inertia of the bureaucracy and the
over-regulation by the state are amongst the enduringly
popular topics for a good gripe. Or could these aspects represent
an advantage? Peter Breidenich, for one, does not fit into
the role of a moaner. The former chief engineer of a destroyer
is Head of the Marine Systems Division of Saacke GmbH & Co.
KG in Bremen, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of
burner systems. The question as to how one could improve
the general business conditions in Germany initially causes
him to reflect in silence. “Actually, we regard the economic
environment to be quite good,” he answers with some hesitation.
“Germany is a very important market for us, because the
technically demanding ships are still built here. As a marine
supplier, we have our finger on the pulse of developments
here, and we can watch new technological trends as they
emerge.”
The company, which generates a turnover of more than
130 million euro worldwide (of which 25 percent is in shipbuilding)
with about 800 employees, has managed to grow
from a subcontractor to a system supplier, thanks to a lot of
ingenuity and a sure instinct. Burners and boilers are needed
for just about any type of ship, be it for providing hot water,
heating the accommodation spaces or warming up the fuel in
the bunker und day tanks, in order to make the heavy fuel-oil
liquid enough for combustion. Up until a few years ago, the
distribution of labour functioned as follows: Saacke delivered
YARDS MOVING FORWARD
Things are going better than ever before for the German maritime and offshore supply industry.
Many companies have internationalized strongly but remain firmly rooted in Germany.
For them, the home country is an important sales market and at the same time a field for
experimenting with new technologies.
Impressions of the burner production at Saacke Marine in Bremen.
Peter Breidenich, Head
of Saacke Marine
Systems
“Germany
is a very
important
market
for us”
the burners to the boiler manufacturers, who integrated all
the components and then sold the complete installations to
the yards. But when a concentration took place amongst the
boiler makers towards the end of the nineties, and several
of Saacke’s partners were taken over or squeezed out of the
market, the future of this business was suddenly very shaky
indeed. The company bravely decided to take the bull by the
horns: to be able to approach the European yards with their
own complete systems, the medium-sized enterprise decided
to acquire a burner manufacturer in Croatia. In 2003, this
move was followed by the founding of their own factory in
China, with a view to serving the Asian market better. Whilst
the steel parts are built overseas, the burner and control technology
still comes from Bremen and is combined at the yards
with the matching boilers from China or Croatia. “We have
made global networking work well for us,” says Breidenich
with some satisfaction. Thanks to their presence in all the
major shipbuilding markets, Saacke Marine is benefiting in
full measure from the current shipbuilding boom. This year,
about 160 plants will be delivered, boosting the firm’s
turnover by 15 percent from its previous figure of 30 million
euros. The fast movers in the delivery programme are the firing
plants for LNG carriers, with which the “boil-off” part of
the gas cargo that is produced by the ship’s motion and solar
radiation can be burnt safely. “The explosive gas is thus converted
into CO 2 , which is still better for the atmosphere than
methane,” explains Breidenich. These gas combustion units
pack quite a punch: as a result of the combustion process, an
output of up to 80 MW is released.
nonstop 3/2006 21