An improvement study to the pre-processing process of Damen Shipyards Galati (DSGa) is performed since benchmark analysis shows that the current pre-processing process underperforms, compared to industry peers. The objective is to increase DSGa’s throughput and decrease space utilisation, such that pre-processing facilities S1 and S1a can be merged into S1a and DSGa meets the industry ‘standard’. Lean Manufacturing shows the potential to enable improvement and is adopted to initiate process redesign. The Lean principles drive the approach of this study, which studies the ‘current state’, defines improvement strategies and implements the strategies in ‘future states’. Finally quantitative analysis shows that the objective is met.