In general, they had missed out on the revolution in shipbuilding which had taken place in the United States during World War II and resulted in the Liberty ship.

Unlike the situation in Japan, where all parties concerned (shipping lines, government, classification agencies, suppliers, education) cooperated,[3] Dutch shipbuilding and its modernization remained a fragmented operation.

It used the idea of boosting productivity by building in sections and series, and focused on supertankers, which became a new market after the 1956 closure of the Suez Canal.

[7] Right-wing politicians noted the high labor cost in the Netherlands, and the low wages in Japan, which built about 25% of the new ships worldwide.

In Sweden, there were very favorable tax conditions for depreciating fixed assets, which had been of great help while modernizing its shipyards.

Keyzer personally noted these as: 1) The almost universal support for foreign shipyards by their governments with financing work; 2) The labor shortage in the Netherlands combined with low productivity; 3) The retardation of the Dutch shipbuilders in switching to an industrial approach of their trade.

In November 1967, NV Machinefabriek Breda voorheen Backer & Rueb agreed to join the conglomerate.

One group consisted of Verolme Verenigde Scheepswerven and wanted a combined building and repair dry dock.

In September 1969 the construction of the supertankers Melania and Dagmaer Maersk alone was estimated to have led to a loss of 20 million guilders.

There was a choice between taking a big loss by a sudden closure of the production line or building ships which would probably not be sold at a decent price.

The three bulk carriers that would be delivered by Alblasserdam on 28 November 1975, 30 May and 30 December 1976, were finally sold for 160 million guilders in October 1975,[29] but this was to a shipping line in which RSV participated.

In it, the government, the labor unions, RSV, and Van der Giessen-de Noord Shipyard would plan the future of medium-sized shipbuilding in the western part of the Netherlands.

At the start, RSV was willing to hand over the former Verolme shipyards in Heusden and Alblasserdam to Van der Giessen-de Noord.

After the Oil Crisis, RSV changed its mind and wanted to take over Van der Giessen-de Noord, which did not like the idea.

When the Dutch shipbuilder's association asked for support in mid-1975, the government demanded that it make a plan to restructure the industry.

They noted that it was making products that it previously bought from suppliers and was even entering their markets (which was also totally against the rationalization of the industry), and feared that without supervision, RSV might try to solve its problems by starting to compete with the smaller Dutch shipyards.

At NDSM, the last ship under construction was to be launched in mid-1977, but RSV stated that it thought that new orders would come in before that date.

4 billion would be needed for a social plan to prevent employees from getting fired, e.g. by early retirement, retraining, etc.

By December 1976, the 28,000 employees of RSV were facing a government plan for a 30% capacity reduction in the national shipbuilding industry.

[33] In April 1977, the board of RSV then sent a letter to the unions about shutting down almost all of P. Smit Jr.'s shipyard, and the shipbuilding part of RDM, for a total of 1,800 jobs.

The shipyard also has a strong labor union presence, and the city itself was leaning to the extreme left of the political spectrum.

In August 1977, the Policy Commission Shipbuilding sent Roelof Nelissen, AMRO Bank board member and former government minister for the KVP to investigate 'closer cooperation' between Amsterdam shipyards.

The Communists were the first to openly suspect that RSV wanted to achieve the liquidation of its shipbuilding activities in Amsterdam covertly by first organizing a merger with ADM and possibly Verschure shipyard.

[56] In the House of Representatives Minister of Economic Affairs Gijs van Aardenne then also stated that the management of RSV had to be reorganized.

A 35-million-guilder order for a floating oil tank for Shell was given to RSV with a government guarantee to cover losses.

In the end, RSV had to subcontract smaller companies like Hollandia Kloos, Grootint, Gusto Slikkerveer and Van Koten en Verbeek to do about 20% of the work.

[57] In late June 1979, the government decided to found Rotterdam Offshore en Scheepsbouw (ROS) a new combination of the shipbuilding activities of VDSM shipbuilding, RDM Offshore, Verenigde Machinefabrieken IJsselmonde (VMIJ) Scheepsmontage, Gusto Engineering, and Marcon Engineering office.

RDM/Wilton-Fijenoord had some trouble, but the overall result of RSV would have been good if Thomassen had not suffered a catastrophic loss of 150 million on projects in Algeria.

[64] Almost immediately after the automatic stay at RSV multiple parties in the House of Representatives wanted to hold a Parliamentary Inquiry.

[65] The Parliamentary Inquiry RSV lasted for 1.5 years and was probably the most famous political affair in the Netherlands after World War II.