The question for most shipping companies is not whether to look beyond certification as a measure of readiness, but how, and where to start. This insight examines a practical approach for operators who want to move from measuring course completion to assessing genuine crew readiness, including what to measure, where to begin, and how to sustain improvement across a fleet.
The practical challenge for operators is not whether to look beyond certification as a measure of readiness, but how. The priority is understanding how crews perform in actual conditions, how knowledge is transferred, how skills are learned, and how critical tasks are supported across a fleet.
The most effective assessments focus on the safety-critical tasks that matter most for each role, including bridge watchkeeping, alarm handling, emergency response, cargo operations, and handovers, and whether crews can perform them consistently.
Scenario-based checks can identify where further learning, familiarisation, and support are required before course completion. These checks could be integrated into simulator sessions, procedure-onboard assessments, supervised manoeuvres, and re-familiarisation periods.
Cristian Cioban, Founder of AICC Maritime Consulting and Brokerage and Master Mariner, explained that “experience gives you the judgement to know when something is wrong before it becomes a problem.” Hristo Hadzhiev, Master Mariner, noted that younger officers “learn the basics in training, but are not very well trained for the critical situations.”
A good starting point is defining the critical procedures and decisions that matter most for each role. Identifying where performance issues most often occur and focusing improvement efforts there first allows companies to test whether clearer expectations and coaching improve outcomes before expanding the approach across the fleet.
Shipping companies need to measure readiness improvement without creating unnecessary reporting. Where possible, the starting point is existing operational data, audit findings, near misses, simulator observations, and onboard assessments rather than creating entirely new reporting systems.
The goal is to identify a small set of indicators that help leaders assess whether crews are genuinely ready. Tracking recurring deviations, repeated workarounds, reactive safety reports, incident reports, near misses linked to procedure gaps gives a more complete picture of operational strain than certification records alone.
Competency checks would provide valuable leading indicators when focused on critical procedures. Effective operators assess whether crews can apply judgement in practical situations.
These situations might include whether a watchkeeper can demonstrate how they would respond if GNSS became unreliable, whether an engineer can distinguish which alarms require escalation, whether a crew can carry out an effective handover and whether a chief officer understands how compliance and security requirements intersect during operations.
Competence is not a one-off achievement demonstrated by a certificate. It is a capability that has to be developed through experience, maintained through practice, and supported by the conditions crews are given to work in.
More training alone will not close the skills gap. The evidence in this report shows that closing the gap requires attention to how competence develops at an individual level, how crews function as teams, and how decisions made ashore about manning, investment, and operational design shape the conditions in which crews are expected to perform.
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