Every year, around five million crew changes take place in commercial shipping worldwide with a total travel spend of eight billion US dollars. Over 70 percent of all business travel is handled digitally, while in the shipping industry, the majority of crew changes across the globe are done manually with general purpose tools such as emails, telephones, notes, and spreadsheets. Lacking any modernization over the past two decades, crewing processes in the shipping industry are inefficient, stressful, and miss out on delivering on a huge optimization potential for the shipping companies.

Since 2021, the Berlin-based company Tilla Technologies has been working to digitalize and automate these outdated processes with its crew change platform. With the Tilla platform, crewing teams can plan, act, monitor and continuously optimize crew changes. The platform integrates all relevant data sources: Vessel schedules, crewing data, port agency data, real- time flight data, travel requirements, and many others. This provides managers with real-time, data-driven support for every crewing decision. The platform finds the optimal flights and books them automatically. All stakeholders are informed of changes at all times. The solution covers all steps of crew planning, from planning to reporting and invoice management, and can be easily integrated into all existing crew management systems. Tilla optimizes over 10,000 seafarer exchanges per year for Peter Döhle Schiffahrts-KG, Leonhardt & Blumberg, John T. Essberger and many other companies.

Lower costs, maximum productivity and happy crew operators at Stödig Ship Management

In a short span of two months, the Norwegian ship management company Stödig Ship Management was fully convinced of Tilla’s benefits as well. Stödig is now using Tilla for its entire owned and managed fleet of 43 vessels and for every crew operator in the team to optimize every crew change.

“It makes little sense to optimize all operational business areas and stop at crewing of all things,” says Erik Mohn, Director of Crewing at Stödig Ship Management. “We therefore also wanted to find the best possible technology for crew logistics optimization. That’s why we have gone through a rigorous data-driven pilot with Tilla on 15 of our managed vessels. It makes crew changes more efficient, cheaper and more scalable. We now have complete transparency of our processes, costs and optimization potential. Our crewing team is also absolutely convinced, and the pilot results of seven percent cost savings and 40 percent improved efficiency benefits for our customers and our company are obvious. With Tilla, we see the future of crew change management in action.”

Niklas Weidmann, co-founder and Managing Director of Tilla Technologies, says: “Stödig Ship Management is a company that is very driven and forward-looking. Erik Mohn provided us with the opportunity and set up the conditions for driving a positive change, be it centralized data, empowered crew managers or aligning stakeholders. We have found everyone in the team to be very open to change. It is therefore all the more fantastic that we were able to convince them of our value. We look forward to growing and innovating with Stödig Ship Management in the future.”