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The safety and the security of life at sea, the protection of the marine environment are more than 90% of the world trade depending on the competence of the seafarers. Tsakos Columbia Shipmanagement operates a robust fleet of 66 vessels investing on enhancing competence by attracting/retaining qualified personnel. We actually focus on the competence of the human element; therefore we focus on how to continually improve the knowledge, the experience and the motivation of our people. People may have a different national, cultural and experience background but they have to operate in a very demanding working environment where there is no room for errors and mistakes. With the aim of implementing these objectives, the company has made a significant investment in order to establish the ‘Maria Tsakos TCM Academy’.
The objectives of this project were to:
- get an external and independent view on how the company manages competence during governance, planning, training and assessment of both shore and seagoing personnel.
- benchmark the company’s CAMS against best practices and industry’s standards.
- identify improvement areas ensuring continual improvement and enhancing safe operation
Project follows a specific methodology:
- Pre-meeting – teleconference (clarify project objectives, methodology and timeline).
- Documentation review (overview of procedures, records, documents used in TCM’ current competence assurance management system).
- Interviewing shore and seagoing personnel on current competence management practices and get feedback and opinion on implementation and areas of improvement.
- Carrying out a gap analysis against best practices and industry standards (TMSA Elements 2, 3 & 3A, BGCAMS standards, DNV GL SeaSkill).
- Analysis of results – identifying areas for improvement and proposing actions to be taken
Components of a competence assurance management system
Example of an appraisal assessment guide
In conclusion, taking all initiatives for crew competence is not an easy task; it entails a lot of efforts and significant investments. However, we should all consider and recognize that the competence of crew is a key success parameter and all initiatives are worth taken. The seafarer’s competence is actually a key safety parameter to ensure a safe and sustainable shipping industry.
Above article is an edited version of Sokratis Dimakopoulos presentation during 2014 SAFETY4SEA Forum
More details may be found by viewing his Presentation video
