Overwhelm: The Default in Crewing

The challenge of working with Crewing Teams - they're busy, most responsibilities are on short notice, and their technology leaves them unable to leverage data. Some of their day-to-day responsibilities include:

1. Digging out available crew to replace overdue crew.
2. Short notice changes due to last minute delays around travel or expired documents which require them to reshuffle crew allocations or extension of contracts.
3. Short notice re-allocations cause a chain effect on other crew plans as crew members are often linked to old, existing, crew plans.
4. Nature of the job promotes long hours, requires special relationships, and brings about intense dissatisfaction.

An Impossible Task

Most people we talk to, do not believe that our technology is possible. That is how fundamental these changes are that are taking place in the world of crewing software.

How can Crewing Teams navigate to a better place where the opposite is true:

1. They are empowered with data.
2. They can be proactive successfully.
3. Stress of short notice changes is lowered.
4. They have a strategic space to act.

If you read the first article, where I described how Generative AI solves old problems that had been waiting for a missing piece of the puzzle, then this is a classic example.

Master Your Data: Just Ask… Anything

With SeaGPT, you can ask for any report you need, and have it delivered in text, spreadsheet or a graphical report.

But more importantly, its the fact that we provide situational awareness in seconds, creating the space to proactively visualise and resolve problems before they become serious. You shouldn't be getting a vessel to nominate a port of call when an overdue crew member won't extend their contract. You should be doing that when you know you have the maximum number of crew you're optimising to get on or off a vessel.

This operates at the Individual, Team and Organisational levels. The impact of increasing situational awareness and the ability to access information that previously might be hours, days or months away (quarterly reporting anyone) means that crewing teams can operate with almost perfect knowledge to deliver the most impactful outcomes.

Using AI to replan a crew change means that a crew operator can consider all potential scenarios in a fraction of a second to navigate to the right one instead of taking hours or days to resolve who is available when.

All of this time saved and improved decision-making opens up time for thinking, reduced stress, and happiness in general, all around.

Automation is Freedom

What does automation mean to you?

We all benefit from it. Whether it is a washing machine, telephone or car, most automation in our lives is something we would not choose to part with.

It will be the same with the automation of administrative tasks using Generative AI.

The most widespread fear is that it will mean people lose their jobs.

It's partly true; people will lose a part of their jobs.

The part that can be automated.

We all benefit from it. Whether it is a washing machine, telephone or car, most automation in our lives is something we would not choose to part with.

It will be the same with the automation of administrative tasks using Generative AI.

The most widespread fear is that it will mean people lose their jobs.

This will be a gift; nothing that can be automated is worth doing. And there is plenty that cannot be automated. Automating low-value tasks will enable present and future crewing teams to engage in much more impactful tasks. Their work will move away from administration to team management, leadership, relationship building, mentoring, and focusing on human impact.

The ideal outcome from Generative AI is more human connection, communication and collaboration. We cannot achieve that with our current level of thinking. We cannot achieve that with a different crewing software. If you are staring at a screen trying to find the answer, you have just changed the messenger, not the medium.

Automating email, database entry, information gathering and intelligence creation is not human connection. It reduces the time you spend on your computer, the opposite of what Crewing Teams excel at; building relationships.

That is why Generative AI is so powerful. It can create the space you don't currently have; that no one else can give you.

Just Ask.

 

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