The Maritime Industry 2021
Well, this was quite the year for shipping. But there is still sunshine to be found in the darkness created by Covid and the major incidents of 2021. Things happening like the blocking of the Suez Canal, multiple human error incidents and Covid restrictions - doesn't make the day brighter.
But even though what you hear in the news is mostly negative, there are some wonderful things happening as well. Molded and old fashioned cultures in shipping are slowly changing. All incidents and near-misses show the weak points of our industry, pointing out compliance and highlighting the procedures that simply do not work. Now that the world is watching, what can we do to move forward and, most importantly, improve?
Let’s take our mindset and put it in a bag and show its content to someone who works in aviation. They will be astonished when they see that in our bag, checklists are just for compliance. They will also look at how in the world we are not taking accidents, near misses and incidents to heart and trying to improve our processes proactively. And why are we all working with risk in different ways, even within the same company?
It is clear that the fundamentals of risk management and our culture needs to change in order for us to not have vessels getting stuck in the Suez Canal. And no amount of new rules or enforced compliance will ever change that, only we can do that.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
-George Bernard Shaw-
Our greatest challenge is reducing Human Error, but it has been Governance and Organizational issues that creates this challenge, not us sailors. Shipping is now all about Compliance, reporting and following the right rules. Don’t get me wrong, they are there for the right reasons but they are just not followed or used correctly in most cases. The people I’ve met since starting my Journey from First Officer in a Cruise Company to the Head of Safety Implementation Solutions at Maranics have shown me the biggest problem we have in shipping: And that is our mindset when it comes to why procedures exist and why processes are implemented onboard.
In shipping we struggle with the fact that many see safety, procedures and other things to mitigate risk as poorly manufactured tools that hamper operations. That the procedures we create are not able to be properly used and therefore, not used at all. So much of what I have come across out there is exactly that, poorly manufactured tools not fit for the purpose. The purpose being making sure that risk is minimized, understood and dealt with by understanding the dangers of not being prepared and constantly improving operations with safety in mind. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it's not the procedure that is important, it is the mindset behind it and using it that is important.
At Maranics we advocate the need for change. We want to make it easy for the seafarer to take up his or her checklist and use it, not because they have to but because they want to and because they understand the value of it! We want to make it easy for office personnel to check that the created procedure actually works as it should and provides all the necessary data with as little effort as possible.
We believe that digitalisation and data collection can make great improvement in maritime. And we are proud that our partners share our vision and use our solutions to make processes more efficient and lives of people onboard better.
Wrapping up this short summary of 2021 we want to invite you to look ahead and think how you can work towards becoming less compliance focused and more safe operations focused in the future! We wish you all a safe and happy end of year celebration, whoever and wherever you are.
