There is an accelerating trend within shipping to embrace the benefits of digitalization across all areas of the industry. One of the areas where this is particularly evident is the development of crew management software, which is becoming increasingly sophisticated and capability rich.
Indeed, crew management software - at the heart of which is a comprehensive database with complete records of all crew members - is an integral, and increasingly important, part of the IT systems of all shipowners and managers. This specialist software enables them to assemble the best possible crews for their vessels and to manage them effectively and efficiently, whilst constantly analyzing performance.
Crewing software can also fulfill a range of traditional management support tasks, including crew scheduling, accounting, payroll management and identifying appropriately qualified and trained crew members.
In fact, crewing management software is used for a wide range of functions. These can include:
Planning crew schedules and crew changes
Finding qualified crew
Liaising with manning agencies
Managing crew certificates, qualifications, and licenses
Running a fleet wide payroll system
Performing crew appraisals
Managing the master’s cash and cash advances
Providing reports based at statistics and key performance indicators
The digitalization trend currently on the way in the shipping industry is leading to rapid improvements in crew management software and its abilities to meet the needs of shipowners and managers, and shipboard crews. In fact, many crew management software systems suppliers are now offering cloud-based applications and in recent years a significant number of users have migrated to the cloud, an ever-growing trend in the shipping industry.
There are many benefits from opting for a cloud-based approach. This can offer greater peace of mind that data and systems are safe from disruption, with secure back-ups in place. There is a reduced requirement also to invest in IT infrastructure, cutting capital and operations costs, while also offering greater flexibility in scaling up crewing management capabilities as business needs expand, for example.
Crew management still requires the human touch. Digitalization can’t replace a conversation between shore-based teams and seafarers around unexpected crises, for instance. However, digitalization can automate many areas of the crewing process so that managers can be more efficient and have access to tools that can accelerate high quality decision-making.
Why is Crew Management Software important?
It is hard to underestimate the importance to any shipowner and ship manager of having good quality crew management software in the maritime industry. Ship crews are at the very heart of their operations, but are a disparate, heterogenous group of employees, often comprising many different nationalities, with a wide range of capabilities and qualifications, and multiple payroll and salary requirements. Managing them efficiently and effectively is a challenging and complex task.
In this context, crewing software is a vital tool in ensuring that each vessel in the fleet is properly crewed, not just with the right number of seafarers, but the correct mix of skills to achieve optimum productivity at sea and in port, high levels of safety and to meet the statutory requirements laid down by international maritime regulators like IMO and different flag states, as well as general governmental requirements like GDPR.
If the specialist crew management software gets things wrong, it can be disastrous in terms of vessel productivity and safety and can be highly costly, sometimes even disrupting planned shipping schedules. On top of that crewing software system failures can lead to a very unhappy workplace and disharmonious crew.
Ultimately, high-quality crew management software for shipping companies allows senior management to make well informed decisions about crew planning, availability, assignment, and competencies, while determining crew schedules and changes across an entire fleet in the short, medium, and longer terms. Specialized crew management software enables an owner or manager to optimize crew deployment, identify qualified crew members and have all the information necessary to pay crew accurately and in a timely manner.
There are a number of issues that need to be taken into account in selecting the right crew management software for a particular shipping operation, and these decisions are increasingly being framed by the overall trend towards digitalization and automation. Below are some of the factors that have to be considered in taking decisions.
Software capabilities
There are several key building blocks that make up good crew management software. For example, software should be able to save all the personal information of an extensive pool of seafarers in a secure and flexible way. It should be easy for the shipping company’s HR teams to be able to import and export crew data, as well search crew lists according to various criteria, and to get information about former personnel who have served on vessels in a fleet.
Software for crew management should be able to track ship crew payroll and other related expenditures from the moment of embarkation to sign-off, as well as to monitor and plan crew supplies such as clothing and uniforms. Basic information such as the height, size and shoe sizes of crew members is important for example to ensure there is no under or over stocking of supplies. Efficiently managing crew travel arrangements and the end-to-end logistics of the crew change process is also essential.
Most crew management software systems are now cloud-based, with all software functionality stored externally on servers, allowing systems to be accessed at any time, anywhere, provided there is an internet connection. The general consensus is that companies that have transitioned to the cloud experience significant benefits in terms of cost savings, reliability, transparency and safety and security outcomes.
Training and performance monitoring
Monitoring crew training is another vital component of crew management software, making sure that all members of a ship’s crew are up-to-date with their training requirements, and highlighting when current training expires and new courses need to be scheduled.
If competency management is a core function of marine crewing software, then monitoring crew performance is another key requirement, providing management teams with vital oversight. The integration of online assessment tools allows the progress and status of each crew member to be followed.
Software selection process
Given its importance to the business overall, selecting software for crew management is a task that requires careful thought and thorough preparations. First and foremost, it is important to draw up a list of the shipping company’s particular requirements to ensure that those vendors on the shortlist have products that match a predetermined selection criteria checklist.
It is also important to do proper due diligence as to the supplier of the software. Do they have specialist ship management experience and are they likely to be in this business for the long haul to support your operations? Does the new product work with legacy systems to ensure a smooth transition?
Other selection criteria include technical evaluation - does it do what it promises; the overall true cost; functionality and ease of use; and post installation support and training. Implementation is vital to getting the crewing software system up and running and it is essential to ensure that the software supplier can help ensure a smooth, trouble-free transition. Ideally this support should be available from the developer and not a third party.
Cost considerations
Cost is inevitably likely to be a key factor in selecting software for crew management, but is quite complex to determine with several disparate elements having to be taken into consideration. The true cost includes licensing fees, which depend on how many users you have, the cost of the software itself and of any modules selected, hosting or hardware requirements, implementation, maintenance and support.
The number of shipping company users for any particular crew management software system globally is relatively limited and this has made many products quite expensive. There is also a lot of volatility in the supplier sector, with vendors who have limited success in recruiting new users of their crew management software often suddenly disappearing from the market. It is important to assess how many companies are actually using the software being considered and the level of commitment of the supplier to this specific market.
Software to manage ship crewing functions also has to be continuously developed and is rarely ready to use off the shelf. It is important to determine how strong the development team of the prospective provider is. No crewing management product will completely meet the needs of a shipping company, so consideration as to how much modification will be needed to match internal processes is important, along with a full and honest costing of those modifications.
Interfacing well with other software used within an organization, as well as with other stakeholders, is a significant benefit. For example, exchanging data with manning agencies seamlessly is likely to be a key requirement. Integration with other software tools, both internally and externally, is becoming increasingly important given the pace of change in the digitalization of shipping and any solution has to be ‘future proofed’ as much as possible.
The power of the cloud
There is no doubt that cloud computing can, and is already delivering, significant value for the shipping industry. This is going to be increasingly evident with cloud crew management software as well.
As already highlighted, cloud computing can reduce IT costs substantially, and can permit large amounts of data to be analyzed quickly, cheaply, and reliably at scale. It also facilitates the task of integrating data flows from multiple sources into a single ‘pool’. Furthermore, using cloud-based technology makes it easier to embrace advanced technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. In short, cloud-based computing can be a game changer for the maritime sector in areas like crew management, allowing shipping companies to innovate faster, and on a global basis.
Looking toward the future
Digitalization generally, and cloud-based solutions in particular, can help the industry address some of the crew management challenges that arise from the need to interact and integrate with other parties. These developments open the door for more seamless integration between crew management software and other, ancillary applications dealing with, for example, payments to officers and crew.
At the moment, quite often crew software systems tend to sit in silos, making mutually beneficial collaboration and integration difficult to achieve. Additionally, within the shipping industry there is still a relatively high degree of manual data inputting and paperwork involved in crew deployment and management.
Looking to the future it should be the norm that shipping companies select as a priority product that can enhance not just digitalization and automation, but the level of integration between all the various stakeholders involved in supporting the crew deployment and management process. Importantly, this includes crew payments that provide enormous benefits to overall operational efficiency but also brings with it the potential to increase seafarer well-being and, as a result, crew retention.
Many in the industry believe that an ideal way forward would be to develop a uniform crew management software solution that could become the basis of an industry standard. Currently that does not seem to be happening. Indeed, the reverse is sometimes true. A number of shipping companies, dissatisfied with what is available on the market, have started developing their own in-house crewing software. But this also has disadvantages, as they become dependent on in-house programmers, and the decision to go it alone often leads to isolated, stand-alone products that are not compatible with other programs.
Developing an effective crewing software infrastructure for ship owners, managers and seafarers that has the capacity for easy integration with external partners and software suppliers is extremely challenging. But it is an issue the industry needs to address as a matter of urgency over the coming years.
