In order to have a profitable ship, every procedure and function on board must work as efficiently as possible. 

In a decade scale manning is history

Traditional manning procedures focus on ship size and scale rather than function, thereby failing to use the full extent of the on board working capacity.

Safe manning is an online and world-wide accessible crew estimation tool to optimise the use of the crew’s capabilities, and thereby offer ship owners, operators, crewing companies, ship brokers and unions a clear picture of the work force needed on a given ship.

Safe manning is developed by the Danish Maritime Authorities, the Technical University of Denmark and FORCE Technology. The project was financed by the Danish Maritime Fund, and is executed in accordance to STCW rules

Concept

Even though Safe manning is a relatively new concept, it holds a lot of well-known synonyms, such as safe crewing, ship crewing, crew simulation, crew estimation, safety crew just to name a few.

The basic concept – a definition

Instead of using the usual scale manning concept, the Safe manning simulation software is based on defining the tasks for each member of the crew necessary to operate a ship in a safe and efficient way - and of course according to the STWC rules.

The concept operates with 6 elements:

  • Ship schedule - which describes a cycle of port calls and open sea transits between ports
  • Task requirements - where the user defines a minimum list of task that are needed to operate the ship
  • Rest rules - which is pre-defined and included in the simulation software
  • Resource (crew) competence - when defining each crew member you define which tasks he/she are competent to solve
  • Resource state - The software keeps track of each crew member's ability to work in relation to the rest rules
  • Environment conditions - The user can define weather-conditions, which e.g. demand a look out on the bridge.

Features

  • Optimisation of necessary crew for a specific ship
  • Planning of work on board

Your input defines

  • Tasks on board (with several attributes)
  • Phases: E.g. Port, at sea, departure and arrival
  • Ship schedule (made up by one or several phases)
  • Crew
  • Crew qualification

Safe manning output

  • Rest rule violation for each crew member
  • Workload per crew member
  • Detailed list of all tasks per crew member

Simulations

The Safe manning decision tool offers clear visual graphs of the workload on board on a ship. This eases the assignment of duties on board the ship, thus makes the daily operation more efficient.

The process of estimating a crew for a ship is done by doing several iterations. You suggest a crew size for a specific ship and evaluate the results until you fulfil the rest rules and thereby follow the STCW.

The steps for estimating the necessary crew for a ship are:

  1. Make consideration of all the tasks to be done on the bridge, engine room, the deck and the galley
  2. Generate input for tasks, ship schedule, and expected necessary crew
  3. Run the model (time simulation)
  4. Evaluate the output with regards to violation of the rest rules
  5. Adjust the workload distribution and/or adjust the number of crew and/or qualifications
  6. Run the model
  7. Evaluate the output
  8. Continue from point 5 as many times as it takes until there is no rest rule violations

Software

Access to the Safe manning software

The software is accessed via the internet on a dedicated FORCE Technology server. Your data is stored on a secure space on the server or you can store it locally on your own computer.

You can get an impression of the practical use, features etc. by accessing the free Demo version (all interested users).

Contact us to get full access to the system. Please note that only the Danish Maritime Industry have access to the system. At this time it will be available for international users as well - feel free to test the Demo version until then.

We offer the following services:

  • Training in the use of the software package
  • Consultancy assistance with construction of data for a new ship type
  • Execution of your input data – run the model for you
  • On-line software access

You can choose between a yearly, monthly or a weekly subscription or you can buy the software for installation on your own computer. Please contact us for a quote.

Note: For the Danish Marine Industry, access to the input user interface is free.