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Handling the Complexity of Crew and Competence

08 / 06 / 2017

The offshore industry has evolved into a complex, global and competence-demanding business. "A reliable tool for keeping track of crew and competence is crucial to DOF’s success in maintaining our high standards for HSE, safety and the quality of our services," said Tor Skeie, CEO of DOF Group-owned Marin IT.

DOF Group’s offices at Storebø in Austevoll, Norway is where the adventure that has been called “the ultimate success in fish and ships” began more than 30 years ago. Founded in 1981 with the aim to be a leading participant in the growing North Sea offshore industry, DOF’s business concept was based on a long term strategy to provide a modern fleet of offshore vessels to engage on long-term contract.

Three decades later, DOF operates with offices and vessels all over the world and is part of the LACO-group, which also includes one of the world’s largest seafood companies.

"But although our services have grown more complex, diversified and global, our vison remains the same: To be a world class integrated offshore company and to deliver marine services and subsea solutions responsibly – always balancing risk and opportunities in a sustainable way,"Mr Skeie said.

All in One

DOF implemented its first OCS HR solution in 2004, and Mr Skeie first got to know the solution when he started at Marin IT in 2009, serving all the IT needs of DOF. The system has since then developed together with the client. "It is safe to say that our relationship with Mintra has evolved into a partnership rather than a traditional client-customer relationship," he said. "It is a demanding task to keep global track of crew and competence, with information that always needs to be up-to-date both onshore and offshore. We therefore needed a solution where information, if possible, is entered only once, where changes in crew and operations are available when needed and with the necessary integration, so that, for example, the hotel management systems that are used onboard run efficiently.

"It needs to have a variety of functionalities: everything from tracking hours, expenses and salary for crews of different nationalities to the information and data that we hand over to the authorities when entering a new country at sea. Plus, we need to provide an overview and planning tool for our crew co-ordinators when manning the ships.

It is safe to say that our relationship with Mintra has evolved into a partnership rather than a traditional client-customer relationship. "

Tor Skeie, CEO of DOF Group-owned Marin IT

A Development Partnership

"When we expanded our operation in Brazil some years ago, we experienced that we had outgrown our local IT solution. To maintain controlled growth we decided to implement the OCS HR platform, both onshore and offshore. Because of special requirements when reporting numbers to the Brazilian authorities, some adjustments and integrations had to be done. But overall we found that having as many of our companies within the same system as possible gave us a bird’s eye view of our operations that otherwise would have been hard to obtain.

"Together with Mintra, Marin IT, Norskan (in Brazil) and DOF management, we have worked together to further develop OCS HR, adding functionality and modelling new processes embedded in the software. The next step is to merge the two databases from Norskan and DOF Management, and organise even more crew and competence data in the same system.

"We complement each other as development partners, always finding new ways to work together. In fact, we get on so well that one of my crew started working for Mintra after the project was finished. Having a former colleague, who knows our operations inside out, working for a supplier is no disadvantage."