John Craggs is a specialist and experienced shipyard and industry consultant with a particular focus on production and business issues. He has practical shipyard management experience and has held senior positions in shipyards in the UK. John has managed several shipyard development projects including some of the leading South Korean shipyards. He is a qualified naval architect, has an MSc degree in shipbuilding and is a chartered engineer. Whilst with First Marine, he has worked extensively on benchmarking and competitiveness studies and, for the international shipbuilding and ship repair industries, on market research, shipyard design and development, and ship and shipyard cost structure studies. He was managing director of First Marine International and is now director of the First Marine Advisory Group within Royal Haskoning.

Malcolm Bell has qualifications in naval architecture and began his career in the design department of one of the UK’s leading shipbuilders. He transferred to consultancy in 1971 and has travelled widely developing and introducing new technologies into shipyards world-wide. Malcolm has been central to the implementation and development of advanced production engineering practices and productivity improvement programmes in the UK, Western Europe, India, South Korea and the US. In the early 2000s, he spent four years participating in teams developing a new modus operandi for pre-production areas designed to take shipyard efficiency forward in the 21st century. As a principal consultant, Malcolm specialises in pre-production organisation and in shipyard design and development.

Damien Bloor is a qualified naval architect and chartered engineer who has held senior positions and been responsible for operations management in shipyards in the UK and overseas, including the US. He has wide experience as a consultant and is currently managing projects in shipyard design, benchmarking and shipbuilding industry competitiveness. He has broad-based industry knowledge and has worked building super-yachts, warships and other high performance craft in the UK. In the US, Damien was responsible for overseeing the design and construction of Corvettes for the Royal Thai Navy and played a major role in completing the vessels on time and under budget. He has also developed ground-breaking analysis methods to assist the European Commission in understanding the cost structures of Far East shipyards.

Frank Bywater is a qualified naval architect and an MBA. After starting his career in UK shipbuilding, he has worked for over 25 years in leading European shipyards, with the last 20 years in senior management positions. As director of planning at Flensburger Schiffbau in Germany, he has played a central role in strategic and operations development since 1992. In addition, he has carried out consultancy work in the areas of performance improvement, organisation, planning and material control for several shipyards in North America, Europe and the Middle East. He joined First Marine as a principal consultant in 2005.

Paul Stott is a naval architect who has held line management positions in shipyards and has a wide-ranging background in international market research and strategic planning. Paul specialises in the marine industry markets including shipbuilding, ship repair, offshore, equipment supply and associated industries. Since becoming a consultant in 1988 he has worked on numerous assignments in around forty countries and has developed a considerable reputation in the field. Of particular note is his innovative work in developing product mix strategies and the understanding of the economic links between shipyards and their markets, as a framework for setting targets. He is a chartered engineer and a member of the chartered institute of marketing. Paul is part of the FMI strategy development team and, in this capacity, has been responsible for producing strategies in support of shipyard developments as well as general strategic consultancy in the marine sector. He has appeared as an expert advisor in the WTO and as an expert witness.

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