Wisestella, a leading provider of AI-powered maritime learning solutions to the tanker fleet, has announced that its technology has played a pivotal role in helping a globally trading tanker operator secure a landmark charter agreement with a prominent oil major.

By using the WiseStella’s Behavioural Competency Assessment Tool (BCA) prior to a TMSA audit, the tanker crews were able to demonstrate behavioural competencies beyond standard expectations, resulting in the ship manager being recognised for Best Practice by the oil major.

“Receiving Best Practice recognition is a tremendous achievement that reflects this company’s unwavering commitment to safety and operational excellence,” said Wisestella co-founder Ferhat Abul. “The WiseStella platform, and in particular its Behavioural Competency Assessment (BCA) module, has been instrumental in helping the shipmanager elevate training and competency management programmes across its fleet.”

The TMSA review highlighted the undisclosed operator’s robust processes for managing organizational change, implementing new regulations and technologies, and ensuring its ship and shore-based teams are equipped to handle complex operational scenarios.

The oil major’s auditors noted that the company’s use of the BCA tool went “beyond normal expectations”, enabling it to create customized assessment scenarios, track individual and fleet-wide performance trends, and benchmark its management systems and practices against industry standards.

This is particularly important as the way teams interact with each other, the company’s management systems and procedures, and ship operations, are evaluated as part of the Tanker Management and Self-Assessment process.

However, although the importance of behavioural competency is gaining traction amongst the industry, assessment of such soft skills is proven to be problematic without having specific Human Factor expertise and without adopting a systematic approach. Wise BCA Tool is developed to help shipping companies address both.

Abul furthered: “tanker operators and crews leverage the power of the platform to drive tangible improvements in safety and performance by objectively evaluating and developing seafarer competencies. Achieving Best Practice status has a huge impact on shipping companies and the commercial relationship they have with the charterer. Best Practice can enhance competitiveness, setting ship management companies apart from the competition.”

In addition to supporting TMSA requirements, the BCA tool can also help tanker operators adapt to new SIRE 2.0 regime, said Ferhat.

“One of the questions in the new SIRE 2.0 inspection questionnaire – Question 3.2.8 – asks if the ship operator has implemented a Behavioural Competency Assessment programme onboard and to provide evidence of assessments carried out for navigation, cargo, mooring and engineering operations.

“This is a new question and if a tanker operator is committed to comply with the question requirements, it is required to have an effective procedure and process in place. Not only to conduct the assessments but also continuously monitor seafarer competency trends either from the period when they have their first onboard assignment within the fleet or the time behavioural competency assessment is started in the company,” said Abul. “The Wise BCA module evaluates Behavioural Competency, providing best practice guidance to enable improvements in the seafarer’s soft skills.”

The operator, which manages a fleet of more than ten chemical tankers, plans to continue expanding its use of the WiseStella platform, including exploring additional modules for fleet optimization, compliance management, and data-driven decision making. It believes that its partnership with the Singapore-headquartered WiseStella will be crucial in maintaining its position as a significant player in the chemical/oil tanker segment.