NYK to use crew management software to prevent labour shortages

NYK has partnered with software developer AIS Co to implement the new software and adapt it to suit the particular challenges of its tug fleet, as concerns mount over future labour shortages in the sector.

The software collaboration project aims to tackle inefficiencies that threaten adequate availability of tugboat crews in Japanese ports that could cuase shortages in harbour services following a rule change to the Seafarers’ Law in Japan agreed in April 2022. The law covers labour contracts for seafarers and was revised by the Japanese government to require stricter limits on seafarers’ working hours.

Tugboat operations and crew embarkation plans change frequently according to the schedules of large vessels, and the complexities and variation in scheduling create a heavy administrative load for tugboat companies in managing time and attendance issues such as linking crew members’ embarkation plans to their actual performance.

The labour law changes have added to these challenges for tug owners and operators in Japan, bringing about a need for improved efficiency in crewing management practices.

To combat these challenges, NYK has introduced Trans-Crew, AIS’s labour management system for seafarers, into its crew management systems as part of the Tugboat DX project to improve the efficiency of attendance management and allowance calculations.

Crew member allowances change with the crew’s position and time on board, which is challenging and time consuming to calculate. NYK has said it will implement complex attendance management and allowance tabulation functions unique to tugboats into AIS’s Trans-Crew software to make these processes more efficient.

Both companies intend to release the first of the new functions of Trans-Crew in Q4 2023 and the final version by the end of the year. They are aiming to link the information entered and tabulated in Trans-Crew with commercially available payroll systems.

NYK said it will promote its Tugboat DX Project to the industry as a business sustainability solution aimed at the tug sector. NYK said it will also promote DX for inspection work and skills transfer among crew members in the future, aiming to address issues in the tugboat industry.