Crew and Personnel Scheduling
MFP Personnel Planning puts crew, scientists and shore staff on the same timeline as the vessels they sail on. Rosters, rotations, relief requests, certificates and medicals live next to the schedule, so a gap, an expired document or a vessel that no longer meets its manning requirements shows up while there is still time to fix it.
The schedule follows the voyage
Crew, science party and shore staff on one timeline, with the rosters, qualifications and medicals that make a vessel ready to sail, built with fleets in the United States, Australia and Europe.
What you can do with it
Personnel Planning covers rotation-based crews, science parties and shore staff in one scheduler, from the roster and the hiring cycle to the day a person steps on board.
Four ways to plan
Headcount per voyage, fixed rotations, flexible rotations or external crewing, mixed across a fleet, with crew change windows shown on the timeline.
Drag-and-drop scheduling
Assign a person to a voyage with embarkation and disembarkation port, travel days and end of duty. Graph and pivot views next to the scheduler.
Safe and operational manning
Define the mandatory qualifications and the desired positions per vessel. Every crew configuration on the timeline is checked and the missing qualification is named.
Roster and billets
A billet grid per department with pay grade, duty station, date in and date out, billet history, and under- and overfilling warnings with equivalent-position rules.
Hiring process
Vacancy positions, candidates, hiring cycles and certificate review requirements, feeding the roster and the hires and separations reports.
Relief requests
Raise, assign and track a relief request per position, with full history, automatic archiving and the vessel notified by e-mail.
Certificates and training
Certificate and training groups, uploads with approval, trainers, courses and providers, and notice periods that put an expiring certificate on the schedule in yellow.
Medical readiness
Physical expiry dates, questionnaires, vaccinations and hearing tests, visible only to the medical readiness role, with reminders before expiry.
Operation log and day status
A day-by-day operation log per vessel with submit, approve and validate statuses, feeding the personnel metrics.
Reporting
Fleet staffing dashboard, mariner dashboard, ship map, roster and billet history, hires and separations, and the annual medical readiness report.
The problem
Crew planning for a research fleet is a puzzle with moving pieces. Rotations have fixed lengths, port calls set the only days a crew change is possible, and every position needs a person whose certificates, training and medical are valid for the whole voyage.
Most fleets solve it with a planner’s spreadsheet and a lot of email. That works until the planner is on leave, a chief engineer’s certificate lapses mid-rotation, or two vessels need the same specialist in the same week.
Built from the schedule, not beside it
The personnel schedule is built from the vessel schedule, not beside it. When a voyage moves, the embarkation and disembarkation dates, the travel days and the crew change window move with it, and every assignment that no longer fits, and every manning requirement that is no longer met, is flagged.
Qualifications that follow the person
Personnel Capabilities keeps every certificate, training, vaccination and specialist capability with the person, not in a filing cabinet. A technical capability names the courses, tasks and certificates a person needs, with a capable and a supervisor level, so the scheduler, the manning check and the dive or fieldwork plan all read the same answer. Seafarers and scientists upload their own certificates in the portal, an approver confirms them, and expiry notice periods turn into warnings on the schedule.
Science parties and shore staff, onboarded the same way
Cruise participants are invited into the same system as the crew. Each role gets its own onboarding form: crew and staff carry their rank from the personnel groups, external scientists pick a position, and the passport, medical and outreach sections sit behind separate access rights. Shore and outreach teams get the reports they need, such as the outreach list with headshots or the alumni newsletter opt-ins per cruise, without ever seeing a medical form.
Integrations
Personnel groups, positions and departments are managed in MFP User Management and can be mirrored from an HR system. The List of Cruise Participants API provides participant data to downstream systems, and relief requests notify the vessel’s executive officer by email per ship.
Built with working fleets on three continents
The roster, hiring, relief request, operation log and medical readiness workflows were built together with NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations for a fleet of sixteen research and survey ships. Schmidt Ocean Institute runs science party and shore staff onboarding for R/V Falkor (too) on the same system, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science is extending Personnel Capabilities with connected credentials for diving and fieldwork. Marine institutes in Europe plan crew and science parties with the same scheduler.
Bring your rotation rules
Book a demo and we will set up one vessel with your positions and rotation policy, so you can see your next crew change in MFP.
