Kalle Id reporting from Bremerhaven
The Lloyd Werft Design Center was ceremonially opened today at Bremerhaven, Germany. The new facility will allow the shipyard to more effectively produce the design work required by the extensive order book it has acquired, primarily from Crystal Cruises, since the yard was bought by Genting last year.
Housed in Lloyd Werft former administrative building – originally built as a laundry for the North German Lloyd – the new center will fully operational on 30th May of this year. Currently, Lloyd Werft employs circa 90 designers, and there simply wasn't enough space for all of them in the existing design facility, especially as the workforce is expected to grow to 150 by the end of the year, Benedikt Brinkmann, head of design and engineering at Lloyd Werft told Cruise Business Review. In total, 250 people can be employed in the facility.
At the moment, the main customer for the Lloyd Werft Design Center is Crystal Cruises, with the Center participating in both the interior and exterior design of Crystal's new river and ocean cruise ships, working alongside Crystal Cruises' own design team. According to Brinkmann, the contracts from companies in the Genting Group currently fill the yard's order book completely, and therefore there are no plans to build cruise ships for other clients.
