Elisabeth Brandenburg

How New Work is shaping the development of CONTACT Elements

You are probably familiar with this scenario from everyday work: an experienced engineer retires, taking decades of undocumented product knowledge with them. At the same time, the position remains unfilled for months. Meanwhile, young talents applying for the job expect modern work tools and a high degree of flexibility. The key challenges our customers face in engineering are skills shortages, employee turnover, and a lack of young talent. Digital transformation is a crucial step towards overcoming these challenges and ensuring long-term competitiveness. But technology alone is not enough:

“The introduction of new technologies is only the first step. What really matters is the ability to align technological innovation with human needs and the demands of a dynamic work environment.”

This is exactly where we at CONTACT Research come in. To actively address these challenges, we are exploring the trends shaping New Work. As a global megatrend, New Work is already influencing your teams on a daily basis. Since we develop the software your employees use every day, we need to understand the new demands New Work places on PLM systems.

Society is changing the world of work

Behind the shortage of skilled workers and the changing nature of work lie profound societal developments:

Demographic Change & Knowledge Loss: An aging workforce requires significant investment in occupational health, ergonomics and continuous training and reskilling. At the same time, growing competition for skilled workers is driving up recruitment and retention costs. As the baby boomer generation retires, the available workforce is also shrinking considerably. This puts valuable expertise, often undocumented and based on years of experience, at risk of being lost forever.

The Expectations of New Generations (Gen Z & Digital Natives): These generations expect flexibility, flat hierarchies, and psychological safety. For them, work is about more than simply earning a living; it needs to provide a sense of purpose. As a demographic shift, these digitally savvy generations are essential to securing the skilled workforce of the future. Companies therefore need to align their employer value proposition with the values and expectations of these potential employees.

Structural Gender Inequalities & Diversity: Unequal treatment based on gender in the labor market is not simply a matter of personal preferences. It is rooted in deeply ingrained structural barriers. This is particularly evident in STEM fields, where the term “leaky pipeline” describes how qualified women disproportionately leave technical professions as their careers progress. Factors such as the systemic gender pay gap, unpaid care work, and difficulties balancing family and career prevent companies from tapping into this valuable talent pool. By actively breaking down these barriers, companies can attract and retain key talent amid skills shortages while also demonstrably strengthening their own capacity for innovation.

Holistic Health & Resilience: Today, health is viewed holistically. Mental resilience and healthy integration of work and personal life are essential to employees. Excessive workloads and monotonous work environments reduce motivation and increase absenteeism.

How can New Work address these challenges?

The practical measures can be grouped into four key areas:

Work Models: Establishing hybrid, remote-capable structures and using modern communication technologies enable the flexible integration of global teams. Flexible working hours and locations, such as flexitime and working from home, as well as project-based work, help attract new talent and retain experienced professionals in the long term while maintaining their productivity.

Shared Values & Culture: An active cultural shift is driven primarily by leaders who set an example by fostering an open culture of feedback and acceptance of mistakes . Leadership is based on mutual respect and trust, with empowerment taking precedence over control. Diversity also acts as a driver of innovation, while a clearly defined corporate purpose strengthens employees’ sense of identification with the company.

Knowledge Culture: Digital skills needed for the future are systematically developed through innovative and creative learning formats. To break down information silos, business-critical knowledge is captured and structured on digital knowledge platforms. Agile microlearning formats also make continuous learning an integral part of everyday work.

Well-being & Working Environment: Preventive occupational health management lays the foundation for a healthy organization. Varied tasks that offer opportunities for development, consideration of employees’ individual life stages and a culture of appreciation all help strengthen their mental and physical resilience.

How CONTACT Elements can support New Work

Let’s be honest: No, CONTACT Elements cannot change your corporate culture on its own. Only you and your teams can do that. However, software that employees use for many hours every day can play a significant role in helping you tailor work tasks, workflows, and organizational structures to their individual needs.

That is why we at CONTACT Research are exploring practical concepts and developing demonstrators in the following areas:

Efficiency & resilience in engineering: When software makes it easy for employees to share personal feedback on their work environment, it can boost motivation and help optimize processes.

Increasing efficiency in the product development process: Designing tasks in software around people’s needs can make a tangible difference in employee satisfaction in everyday work.

Maintaining quality throughout projects: Software that allows work to be organized with individual needs in mind helps strengthen employee engagement.

Resilience on the shop floor: Flexible, workforce scheduling tailored to individual needs helps conserve resources and promotes the physical and mental well-being of your teams.

CONTACT Elements new work is an internal research project by CONTACT Research. Do you have questions, ideas, or even a healthy dose of skepticism? We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch and let’s work together to shape the future of PLM and create more sustainable, people-centered work environments.

Shipbuilding meets digitalization: two years in the SEUS research project

Two intense years in the European research project SEUS are now behind me. Our shared goal: to drive the digitalization of European shipbuilding forward. The need for this remains as pressing as ever. The EU continuously funds research and development projects in the maritime sector to strengthen Europe’s position in global competition – which is vital for survival given the low-wage countries and extensive subsidies in markets outside of Europe.

Although European quality is highly valued in the maritime industry, cost pressures are forcing even this traditional sector to achieve massive efficiency gains and optimize its processes. This is exactly where we at CONTACT came in: as an integral partner in this research and a driving force behind the transformation, our goal was to provide the crucial data backbone required for successful digitalization.

A floating city – and what it has to do with PLM

First, we had to dive deep into the complex requirements and processes of shipbuilding to truly understand them. Through intensive discussions with shipyards, in-depth analyses, and a thorough review of the current state of research, we were able to build a comprehensive foundation of knowledge.

What really impressed us was the meticulous care with which the shipyards in this project process enormous volumes of information, collaborate securely across disciplines, and confidently navigate strict classification requirements. This involves tens of thousands of pages of test reports, calculations, manuals, and technical specifications.

What is being built here is nothing less than a small, self-sustaining city floating across the oceans – a construction process that never fails to fascinate. This is just as true for classic cargo and container vessels as it is for highly specialized cable-laying vessels, complex research ships, or military vessels.

The data backbone: connecting the maritime world

The greatest challenge lies in efficiently managing and transparently controlling the diverse information generated across all disciplines, engineering phases, and construction stages. To address this, we developed a data model specifically tailored to shipbuilding that connects all types of information, including project schedules, CAD models, simulation results, engineering designs, and supplier contracts.

Viewing the ship as a “physically massive and complex system” is crucial here. This means that instead of a few individuals keeping track of the entire vessel, a large number of engineers divide the work into smaller areas of responsibility. Depending on the engineering task and phase, they look at the ship from different angles. For example, while designing the propulsion unit focuses primarily on the architecture of that specific system, designing the ship’s hull centers on spatial layout.

A traditional product structure, which hierarchically organizes parts and assemblies based on how they fit together, cannot meet these demands. There is not one “true” product structure; instead, there are multiple viewpoints: systemic, spatial, production-centric, and module-oriented.
Many shipyards and engineering offices use a centralized system structure, as a large portion of the work involves designing, engineering, and integrating systems of all kinds. In Europe, the “SFI Group System” has established itself as the de facto standard for this purpose. This three-level standard catalog contains 4,080 entries for systems and subsystems that can be found in any type of vessel.

Schematic Diagram of Shipbuilding — CONTACT’s data model expands the standard catalog with additional perspectives.

Our IT architects designed a data model that systematically maps these other perspectives around this standard (for details, see our paper on Zenodo). In early-stage ship design, systems are first roughly dimensioned using placeholders. For example, you might specify that an engine is needed, but not yet which particular model. These placeholders – referred to below as “items” – are organized according to the SFI Group System catalogs.

As development progresses, we link these items to additional structures that form the basis of the other perspectives. Using the previous propulsion example, this could mean selecting a specific engine for that item. In addition to relevant documents, requirements, specifications, and project tasks, a CAD model can also be linked. Our partner Cadmatic enables this through a deep integration of CAD tools.

Although the project is not yet complete, a shipbuilding-specific PLM backbone, the flexible and modular CONTACT Elements platform, and the deep integration with marine CAD software already form a solid foundation for further application-level development. The sheer scale of these projects highlights why this is so critical: if even ten documents, such as specifications, CAD files, analyses, manuals, and test reports, are associated with each of the up to 4,000 possible subsystems, you quickly end up with massive amounts of data that would be uncontrollable without structured management.

On top of that, each of these documents goes through its own lifecycles, reviews, and approvals that must be coordinated both internally and with external partners. Seamless, traceable document management across corporate boundaries is therefore absolutely vital, and thanks to an extension in CONTACT Elements for shipbuilding, it is fully achievable.

To learn more about the background and the partners involved, check out the SEUS Annual Report 2025.

Digitalization for the High Seas

The sun is shining in Hamburg, and the mild autumn air is in motion – even though I am perfectly equipped for rainy weather. In early October, shipbuilders from around the world gather in a conference hotel near the harbor for the CADMATIC Digital Wave Forum. The user meeting invites participants to experience CADMATIC’s CAD application for shipbuilding firsthand and to learn about current trends, product innovations, and new developments. The highlight: CADMATIC Wave, an integrated CAD/PLM solution specifically designed for shipbuilding and jointly developed by CADMATIC and CONTACT.

Model visualization simplifies data retrieval and collaboration

After our first coffee, we slowly make our way into the conference hall. The morning is filled with numbers and facts around CADMATIC’s digitalization strategy. In the afternoon, our Managing Director Maximilian Zachries presents CADMATIC Wave to the 200 participants. As we demonstrate the first functionalities of the integrated Product Data Management (PDM), some attendees quickly pull out their phones to snap a photo of the feature. I am somewhat excited – now it’s official. Now we also need the data model. And that isn’t quite so simple.

Cadmatic's Atte Peltola introduces the audience to Cadmatic Wave

The resounding call for a data model for shipbuilding carries me through the three days in Hamburg. During my conversations with industry colleagues, it becomes evident that the information required and generated in the shipbuilding process must be able to be mapped within the model. Model-centric is the magic word: the ship’s geometry is visualized, including equipment, fittings, and logistics. Information can then be retrieved and added via the specific parts of the model. Model visualizations provide a shared and intuitive view of the ship for all involved trades, significantly simplifying information retrieval. This enhances the efficiency of engineering activities and collaboration, also with partners.

Basing a data model on ship geometry is challenging

Engaged in a discussion with a research associate from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), we stumble upon a question: Is the geometry model even suitable for generating a generic product structure for data storage in the PDM? After all, as a placeholder in a data model, there are quite a few locations in such a ship. And let me put it this way: data models are typically organized along the processes in product creation, not the geometry of a ship model. I am curious to see how we will solve this challenge in CADMATIC Wave.

The evening event takes place on the Cap San Diego, a museum ship in the Hamburg harbor. The rustic flair of a ship’s belly and the lavish buffet create a cozy atmosphere for lively conversations. We talk about life in Finland and Norway and the difference between information and data management. The evening ends stormy and rainy, and I finally put my rain gear to good use and return to the hotel dry and warm.

SEUS brings European shipbuilding to a new efficiency level

At the CADMATIC Digital Wave Forum, I also meet my consortium partners from the Smart European Shipbuilding (SEUS) project for the first time. Among them are representatives from NTNU and CADMATIC, as well as employees from two shipyards, the Norwegian Ulstein Group and the Spanish Astilleros Gondan SA. SEUS is an EU-funded research project with the goal of developing an integrated CAD and PLM solution for shipbuilding. This endeavor goes way beyond the functionalities we develop in CADMATIC Wave. For instance, we aim to incorporate knowledge management and utilize AI for searching within product data.

In this context, the broad positioning of our research department, CONTACT Research, works to our advantage. Our focus areas include not only Digital Lifecycle Management, where we conduct research on digitalization strategies for various industries, but also Artificial Intelligence. The AI product data search we aim to implement in SEUS allows us to bring our self-declared motto to life: “Bringing artificial intelligence into the engineering domains.”

As three days in Hamburg come to an end, three strong impressions remain:

It is necessary to design an abstract data model for shipbuilding. One that contains the modules of a ship and yet can be customized to fit the specific needs of any shipbuilder. This data model must be closely linked to the development process.
Personal exchange and meeting each other face to face have been an enriching experience for me in this new work area. This positive feeling motivates me for my future work in the SEUS project.
In Hamburg, rain gear is a must.