Lifting davit output: Vestdavit expands Polish production facility to meet rising demand

Vestdavit has boosted davit manufacturing capacity by 60-70% through expansion of its production plant in Poland with a new assembly hall that will enable the leading Norwegian supplier to meet growing demand from its core naval and offshore energy markets for advanced boat-handling systems.

The state-of-the-art 1000 square-metre facility, recently opened at the Vestdavit Production site at Redzikowo in northern Poland, will greatly enhance the efficiency of the davit fabrication process by eliminating an assembly bottleneck to increase annual throughput to around 100 units, while allowing construction of larger davits and bolstering innovation, according to the company.

“We expect to achieve efficiency gains of at least 10% through this significant investment, while also creating jobs as a responsible citizen to boost local employment after increasing the workforce at the factory from 65 to 85 in recent years,” says Vestdavit Managing Director Rolf Andreas Wigand (pictured).
Importantly, he points out, construction of the assembly hall means that Vestdavit has become a fully integrated davit supplier with engineering, procurement, production and quality control consolidated at a single manufacturing hub. Design, administrative and sales support is also instantly available from the Norway head office via a newly upgraded ERP system that enables real-time data-sharing.

“This enables us to control every part of the value chain throughout the davit production process. Consequently, we can streamline the workflow and optimise fabrication to accelerate deliveries of sophisticated bespoke davit systems for our clients within demanding schedules, as well as budget and quality parameters, through time savings of 20-30%,” Wigand explains.

In practice, this means immediate availability of diverse davit components from a storage and logistics depot in the adjacent main building that was formerly used for assembly work prior to construction of the dedicated assembly hall. Vestdavit can tap an efficient local supplier network to source items such as steel structures and components, as well as services like machining and painting.

The main building also houses offices, welding area, machining room and tool storage area, while the close proximity to production teams under one roof facilitates efficient interaction among personnel to tackle any issues during the manufacturing process, which is supported by advanced automation technology.
The new facility enables faster turnaround on orders through parallel assembly of multiple davits to boost productivity, as is the case with several PLAR-6501 units currently under construction for shipbuilder Austal Australia for vessels on order with the Royal Australian Navy.

Furthermore, the spacious hall with a high ceiling to accommodate large cranes allows fabrication of much larger boat-handling systems, such as docking-head davits favoured by the offshore wind industry for deployment of large workboats for turbine maintenance.

“As well as providing greater production flexibility, the new facility allows room for more innovation to expand product development in accordance with client specifications. There is a great benefit from being able to produce everything internally given the increasing complexity of davit projects,” Wigand says.
There are also davit testing facilities at the extensive 2.6-hectare (26,000 square-metre) site, acquired by Vestdavit in early 2020, which is located within the Slupsk special economic zone in the Pomerangia region of northern Poland.

Vestdavit has adopted the innovative augmented reality solution xAssist that allows remote inspection, testing and verification of equipment, with digital goggles used by workers at the factory to transmit visuals for viewing on the Teams meeting application, which was a boon with travel challenges during the earlier Covid-19 pandemic.

This is part of a push by the company to increase application of digital solutions throughout the davit development process to improve production efficiency, while customer relations management has been enhanced with a web-based system to interact with clients to optimise productivity from design to delivery.
But Wigand emphasises that the “extremely competent workforce represents our greatest asset and most important resource” at Vestdavit Production, with a strong contingent of female employees reinforcing the company’s policy of gender diversity.

“Our production team in Poland, including warehouse workers, fitters and assemblers as well as administrative staff, has a high level of expertise with a strong commitment to quality and sustainability underpinned by ISO certification that ensures safety and environmental responsibility,” he says, adding the company also has a good working relationship with the local authorities, banks and partners.
Vestdavit is focused on upskilling opportunities for its Polish team to improve their technical capabilities and problem-solving skills, while also providing apprenticeships for new recruits in areas such as hydraulic pipelaying.
The combination of a well-trained and highly skilled workforce with a more efficient production facility has given Vestdavit an enhanced capability to roll out rush orders, as well as quickly turn around repeat orders for standardised designs, according to Wigand.
“With this additional capacity, we have the ability to produce everything in our orderbook now and in the foreseeable future,” he says, after the company boosted orders by 76% last year to hit a sales record due largely to increased activity in offshore wind.
But he does not rule out further expansion of Vestdavit Production and its workforce based on the company’s optimism over further exponential sales growth in its main markets going forward.
“With another 3000 square metres available for additional construction at the site, we have the possibility of doubling the size of the production plant,” he says.