Scheduling and Planning Transcript Notes

Technology Investment

  • Prioritize investment in technology.

  • Integration is a significant advantage.

  • Logic is built to allow seamless integration.

Introductions and Workforce Planning

  • Lauren Taylor is the Director of Workforce Planning.

  • Carmelo is the Senior Manager for Scheduling in the marine department (deck, engine, and securities).

  • Eva Martins is the Manager for the hotel departments.

Scheduling Overview

  • Scheduling over 59,000 crew members.

  • Using Tableau dashboards and a scheduling engine.

  • Predictive analytics are utilized with various metrics and KPIs.

Scheduling Team Structure

  • Managers: Carmelo and Eva.

  • Supervisors in each of the marine and hotel parts.

  • Planners handle crew rotation, sign-offs, and sign-ons.

  • Coordinators manage short-term assignments (less than three months) and day-to-day operations.

Systems and Tools

  • CPS (Crew Personal System) is used for assignments and reports.

  • Tableau is the main source for reports, built by the analytics team.

  • A scheduling engine is used for long-term assignments, sign-offs, and sign-ons; improvements are ongoing to include crew requests.

Department Responsibilities

  • Marine team handles deck, engine, security, and info technology.

  • Hotel side handles numerous departments; casino and entertainment are separate.

CPS Capabilities

  • CPS contains personal information, documents, payroll, career path, and assignment history.

  • Scheduling can be done individually, in bulk (small amounts), or via backup load using Excel files or the scheduling engine.

Excel Upload Scenario

  • Planners previously used Excel files to plan sign-up and sign-on dates, then uploaded them into CPS.

  • This method is being phased out in favor of planning within CPS.

  • CPS preplanning functionalities allow assignment adjustments and reviews without immediate approval.

  • The goal is to avoid Excel due to the lack of preplanning information (career path, training, licenses).

Pre-advised Report

  • Shows future assignments, movements, vacations, and transfers.

  • Indicates companion status and assignment confirmation.

  • It is intended to be replaced by an onboarding tracker that provides comprehensive information related to assignment readiness.

Scheduling and Onboarding

  • Scheduling is upstream; onboarding is downstream.

  • Gaps are identified in scheduling, and a list of available personnel is maintained.

  • The report identifies gaps in manning tables, ensuring the correct number of personnel is assigned.

Data-Driven Approach

  • The scheduling approach is data-driven, considering rejections, on-plan changes, promotions, seasonality, and position factors to determine the right number of people to sign on.

  • Data is consumed from Tableau and CPS; the goal is to centralize this logic within CPS for easier decision-making.

  • Automation will recommend sign-ons and sign-offs, with manual verification.

TOP Dashboard

  • The TOP (Target Operating Profile) dashboard shows gaps at the ship and position levels.

  • Ships receive reports indicating who is arriving/rejecting assignments.

  • TOP and complement levels are the same; scheduling considers over-scheduling to account for rejections.

Onboarding Tracker

  • The onboarding tracker will allow scheduling to see chat history and notes from onboarding coordinators to better understand a team member's readiness.

Flight Compliance

  • Measures whether flights are booked in the system.

  • Ensures documents, travel, and hotel arrangements are in place.

Long-Term Planning

  • The report on onboard team members with future return assignments is used for long-term planning.

  • Aims to assign team members through the end of 2025 and identify recruiting needs.

Attrition and Fallout

  • Attrition, fallout, and rejections are factored into recruitment forecasts, along with the number of people onboarded but did not show up.

Establishment Factor

  • An establishment factor is used, varying by position, to determine recruiting readiness and numbers.

  • Nationality and gender splits are considered.

Target Establishment

  • Target establishment, demand, and supply dashboards are used to distribute targets to recruiters, replacing Excel spreadsheets.

Rejection Report

  • Tabular reports provide historical data on rejections per position and ship.

New Hires Report

  • A report shows new hires or rehires without assignments, assisting in future planning.

Marine Team Report

  • The marine team uses a specific report to determine where to send officers, considering ship experience, evaluations, and tenure.

  • Cost of movements, restrictions, and operational requests are also considered.

Senior Officer Planning

  • Senior officers are typically planned twelve months ahead, unless there are performance issues.

  • Contracts may vary (e.g., three months on, three months off).

Over-Scheduling Report

  • The over-scheduling report is under development to assist planning and scheduling teams in identifying short-term needs and proximity to TOP.

  • It takes into account rejection, attrition, and potential movements based on historical data.

  • Aims to automate the calculation of extra sign-ons needed based on sign-offs.

Managing Over-Planning

  • Scaling coordinators manage rebalancing if over-planning occurs.

  • Assignments may be delayed, and team members may be moved to different ships.

  • Truing up/down is done as early as possible, ideally 30 days ahead, to avoid frustrating team members and incurring ticket costs.

Deplanning Principles

  • Deplanning principles consider whether the SEA (Seafarer Employment Agreement) has been issued and signed.

  • There may be freedom to move within 30 days for Filipinos; otherwise, challenging ER/HR practices may arise.

Filipino Contracts

  • If a Filipino contract is signed with POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration), efforts are made not to move the team member.

  • If movement is necessary, TMC (Travel Management Company) is advised, and the new document is signed.

Current Criteria and Formulas

  • Current criteria and formulas are used to calculate over-scheduling numbers.

Planned vs. Unplanned Movements

  • A report tracks planned versus unplanned movements to analyze their effects on positions and ships.

Recruitment Forecast

  • A forecast is provided to the recruiting team monthly, including requested numbers, shortages, relief factor, active team members, fallout rate, pending DCR (Department Change Request) team members, and PPC (Proposal Payroll Change).

Position Management Project

  • A project aims to automate the forecast and integrate it into CPS.

  • Forecasts for all position openings will be created, with breakdowns for internal vs. external hires.

  • Operations will have KPIs for internal promotions, and team members will be able to see open positions and apply through TM Hub.

Cadets

  • Cadet numbers are determined by the scheduling team, with agreements with academies.

  • Two types of cadets: regular (four and two rotation) and those on longer programs (two to three years).

  • A balance is maintained between internal promotion from deck cadet to third officer and external hires, roughly fifty-fifty.

  • There are enough berths for cadets, sometimes three or four on certain shifts.

Scheduling Engine

  • The scheduling engine allows selection of ships and departments to run sign-off, sign-on, or one-for-one replacement jobs.

  • Rules can be applied, such as considering join partners/companions, nationality mix, and gender substitution.

  • Weightage is given to different criteria based on departmental priorities.

  • Vacation tolerance ensures adherence to vacation time contracts.

  • The output results proposed list of planning and the planners can verify which makes sense and then approve.

Sign-Off and Sign-On Jobs

  • The system simulates signing off a group of people before signing on replacements.

Interface

  • A weighted rule allows selecting the highest value of priorities.

Weightage

  • The planners can give weightage for each of them and depending on that the output list get prioritized as well.

Contract

  • Once team member selects a contract of 120 days or so, the engines gives recommendations based on it. However, for a companion it can go longer if the planets set the set it up. The engines only does assignments based on the contract lengths.

Deplanning

  • For Filipinos, if contract has been signed, then you avoid this. You have 30 days of flexibility and hence you reschedule a person, same shift, the POA is still valid.

Cadets

  • There are also two distinct cadet pools for the program, one is doing the traditional ones like foreign 2.

Sign Off Process Differences

  • The LOE does not have the sign off date written in it, instead the CFAR will have that and hence sign on jobs needs to be created. The SeaFair employment greements does have a sign off date.

TOP Report

  • The engine automatically has the TOP and the sign offs created depending if there and once people start using it.

Interface with Onboarding and Alerts

  • Currently, the interface with onboarding teams is done through email when assignments are canceled due to documentation issues.

  • Rejections are received, and a rejection report is generated.

Team Size

  • For Marine, there are seven schedulers and three planners.

Riding Team

  • Riding team is planned by ops in different locations.

  • In writing team, there is scope issue with the Drydocs for moving things.

Automation and Drydocks

  • Drydocks are capex and need supply management from a corporate perspective.