Word: gdynia
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...surprising success of Poland's Gdynia Shipyard Group was featured in the July 16, 2001, issue of TIME Global Business. The group, which owned the yard where Lech Walesa led his worker's revolt, had shed its communist legacy to adopt market-economy practices such as product specialization and round-the-clock shifts. Now scandal at a competing shipyard may threaten Gdynia's success. The Stocznia Szczecinska shipyard, Poland's second largest shipbuilder, was forced in June to declare bankruptcy. Six of the company's former executives were arrested and charged with criminal mismanagement and fraud that...
...time, Szlanta was in charge of restructuring failing companies for the privately owned Polish Bank of Development. On the advice of Szlanta, the bank took over management of Gdynia's shares in 1996. He then used his personal banking connections to obtain desperately needed credits that would help boost the shipyard's output. He put the workers on round-the-clock shifts, which boosted productivity. In 1997 the shipyard was turning a profit of $16 million on $300 million in sales. The next year, net profits nearly doubled, to $30 million. Szlanta is highly motivated to keep the yard...
...company's success owes something to the relatively low wages paid skilled workers. An experienced production worker at Gdynia earns about $775 a month, compared with $3,690 in Japan and $3,300 in the U.S. The yard's business got a boost last year when European governments, under an OECD-orchestrated plan, agreed to lift their subsidies from competing shipyards. But Szlanta emphasizes that Gdynia also benefits from a pool of several dozen leading engineers, who were trained at Gdansk Technical University's elite shipbuilding school and are considered among the best in the world...
Szlanta's strategy of specialization has proved to be smart. While other shipbuilders tend to work on variations of a standard hull, Gdynia designs from scratch and works closely with clients to add special features that they want. The blueprint that won the Weyerhaeuser contract is a gantry-crane "open hatch" design that many shipyards simply weren't equipped to produce. The ships will carry lumber and paper to the Far East and return filled with cars, snowmobiles and industrial equipment. The built-in retractable cranes will allow the ships to load and unload quickly, even at ports with inferior...
...more on Weyerhaeuser, shipbuilding and Gdynia, see our website at time.com/global