As a commercial enterprise, a shipyard typically generates comparatively low margins at best, even when business is buoyant. Today’s high material costs, intensely price-competitive global environment, and growing vessel complexity, increase the pressure on companies to achieve a satisfactory, net financial return.

Market distortions, attributable to covert and overt policies of those governments which see ship construction as a key element of national industrial strategy, heighten the challenges facing shipbuilders in other areas where recourse to central support is less or non-existent. But whether or not the ultimate goal is individual, corporate profitability or national economic wellbeing, technological transition is paramount.