Last week fathom held a live discussion on how to think of crew as an asset, rather than a cost.
Here are some thoughts from our listeners and our speakers during the discussion.
On BP ships the crew have daily free internet access and daily free phone calls for the crew so that they can make calls home.
I believe before any major changes can be achieved in the maritime industry apart from the big players that have the funds for it, it requires to bring these discussions up to a higher level…more into the board level and get there input. It’s the owners/investors and banks that sits on the money so as long as they are not hammered with the problems…I think any changes within the industry will take time,
It’s obviously good to discuss issues that are currently emergent for many people on lower levels…but as long as there are not a set of proper funds and reached consensus from the people who has the money, I believe the pace of change will be very slow, unfortunately.
We have to involve young people. Through colleges, through organisations like young ship, wherever we can to get the next generation engaged and have some form of engagement at a much earlier level. It is implicit on everybody to bring the young leaders through from tomorrow ans say what is this thing going to look like. But I’m not sure how we can achieve this.
I believe that we need to be training multidiscplinary crews who are extremely tech savvy, as that who is going to be operating the ships not just tomorrow, but the ships we are putting out there today.
It’s more unusual today to get these schemes whereby companies take young cadets and train them right through the years to retirement. It used to be prevalent in the industry but it’s quite rare now. So how do we get to the point where you are investing in crew members and not going to lose them?
OEM equipment changes so we need to mandate training to keep up with these changes.
Autonomous ships is a fascinating issue. There has been a law of unintended circumstances where we have reduced crew but this has led to social isolation, lonliness, fatigue. Connectivity is a major part of this but it is still only one pillar in the various reponses that we need.
Asset not a cost is key to this and we need to start thinking this way across the industry. I would like to see everyone bringing the young entrepeneurs though and bringing them to events. So we need to bring these young people through and make sure we do think of them as an asset and not a cost.
Fathom-News
editor@fathom-mi.com
