Damen Shipyards Rolls Out AI Assistant Joule to Cut Engineers' Paperwork in Gdańsk

Damen's engineering office in Gdańsk, part of the Dutch shipbuilding group, is set to gain a new tool for cutting down on paperwork in the near future. The company is rolling out Joule, SAP's generative AI assistant, which is meant to take over tedious administrative tasks and let engineers focus on designing ships rather than filling out forms.

A shared ERP foundation

Damen decided to unify its systems back in 2019, choosing SAP S/4HANA as the common platform for all group companies. Previous IT systems at some subsidiaries had been in place for 15 to 20 years, making it difficult to compare data across shipyards and slowing down financial reporting. The migration to SAP's private cloud ultimately covered about 80 percent of the group's entities.

Only after building this shared foundation could the company begin rolling out AI-based layers on top of it. Joule, SAP's generative assistant integrated with the Business Technology Platform, draws on unified operational data to automate tasks that previously took hours of work from administrative and engineering teams.

Joule goes to work

The first pilots launched in April 2026 at Damen's shipyard in Galați, Romania. There, the assistant took over automatic processing of goods receipts and approval of employee timesheets, two processes that previously required manual document checks by administrative staff.

Young specialists are using it, and the speed gains they get from it are impressive - Han Coenraad, SAP program manager at Damen Shipyards

Coenraad notes, however, that the pace of rollout varies between the company's different departments, which is itself an organizational challenge. Kenny van Sleuwen, an ERP systems architect at Damen, points to solutions like SAP's sovereign cloud as a way to bring different technology environments to a common denominator, so that the benefits of automation are available evenly across all locations.

Gdańsk is next

According to Damen's announcements, the next site for the assistant's rollout will be the engineering office in Gdańsk, part of the group since 2013 and specializing in optimizing ship performance. The Tricity area (Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot) is considered one of Europe's more important centers for vessel design, so freeing up engineers there from administrative work has a direct impact on how quickly orders get completed.

For the local job market, this means some of the duties tied to document workflows and approvals will disappear from engineers' desks, freeing up more time for designing hulls, propulsion systems and onboard installations. It fits into a broader trend of shifting routine office tasks to AI assistants at industrial companies operating in Poland.

What's next for the project

Han Coenraad stresses that the rollout so far is just the beginning, and that the real business value will emerge in the coming months, as Joule takes on more processes across more locations.

Now it's about starting to capture real business value: building faster, wasting less and operating in a more sustainable way - Han Coenraad, SAP program manager at Damen Shipyards

The company says a full assessment of the rollout's effects, including measurable time savings and a reduction in documentation errors, will only be possible in a year, once the assistant has been extended to further locations, including the Gdańsk design office.

Sources: AI zamiast biurokracji. Cyfrowy mózg stoczni Damen uwalnia potencjał inżynierów w Gdańsku (innpoland.pl), Damen Shipyards versnelt digitale transformatie met RISE with SAP Private Cloud Edition (news.sap.com)