Wilton's Dok- en Werf Maatschappij was the biggest predecessor of Wilton-Fijenoord, the other was the Shipyard Fijenoord.

The rationale was that the still profitable Wilton company had a major overcapacity and was spread over two locations.

A concentration of the combined activities in Schiedam would lead to major cost savings.

This was a fast way to merge, but it also meant that the organisations themselves continued to exist from a legal as well as an organizational perspective.

Fijenoord employees tended to look at the Wilton men as disorganized, improvising and rude.

Should it radically concentrate all activity in Schiedam, and hope that the high cost for the move would be earned back by cost-savings?

In 1932 the board decided to close down the Fijenoord location, and to move the activities on the Westkousdijk (Delfshaven) to Schiedam as much as possible.

The shipyard also took over the machinery of bankrupt HIH Siderius artillery firm in 1934[6] and in the second half of the 1930s built 120-mm and 150-mm guns for the Dutch Navy jointly with Bofors,[7] also producing several Wilton-Fijenoord Pantserwagen armoured cars in the mid-1930s.

On 29 January 1936 the board then proposed to postpone the repayment of part of open bonds by one year.

The department of defense intervened by giving advance payments on submarine mine layers.

In the end a government guarantee of a private loan of 1,500,000 guilders saved the company.

In November 1933 the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum company (part of Royal Dutch Shell) placed an order for three tankers of 12,000 tons capacity.

[12] In early 1935 the Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij, another subsidiary of Shell, ordered six tankers for 6,000,000 guilders.

[17] The Nederlandsche Pacific Petroleum Maatschappij was active in the Dutch East Indies.

[18] In June 1936 the Nederlandsche Pacific Petroleum Maatschappij then signed a contract for oil exploration in a big area of southern Sumatra.

At that moment the worst of the crisis was over, but the liquidity was saved by the above-mentioned advance payments on these ships.

A notorious problem for the Dutch yards before the Second World War, was the lack of design capabilities.

By a cartel agreement, four Dutch yards including Wilton-Fijenoord formed a joint design office in 1935.

[20] Another cooperation in design was that between Fijenoord and the IVS or NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw.

During the war Fijenoord would also launch the cruiser later named De Ruyter, but known at that moment as KH 1 (Kreuzer Holland 1).

The dry docks of the company were severely bombarded by the allies, and were almost broken up by the Germans.

The cruiser De Ruyter would also be finished, but her plan had to be changed drastically because of the experience gained in the war.

Meanwhile, the shipyard had to catch up with the advanced welding techniques that had revolutionized British and American shipbuilding.