There is only one way for the maritime cluster in Finland to survive. It has to be ready to respond rapidly to changes from the outside world. In order to prepare for the future, design companies and engineering consultants in the marine sector have to assess their current collaboration competence and continuously invest in increasing their engineering capability. It is becoming increasingly important to manage and develop competences for future new business environments. This paper presents a new approach to expanding the use of maturity models with the assessment of innovation and engineering capability. The paper reports on the development work of the new Innovation and Engineering Maturity Model and experience of using the model to identify fundamental and urgent competence development needs.