Every 20 minutes Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) hires a new employee. With a growth in capacity of 15 percent and a 15 percent turnover among its employees, the company renews 30 percent of its staff each year. This is an enormous challenge for RCCL which, with its focus on passengers, has zero tolerance for errors, defects and unwanted events.
DNV has been RCCL's class society ever since RCCL was formed in 1968, when work on the Song of Norway - the company's first cruise ship - was started for delivery by Finland's Waertsilae yard in 1970. "We're talking about a successful partnership that has lasted more than 35 years," says Harri Kulovaara, senior vice-president and the person responsible for fleet operations and newbuildings in RCCL.
"We've had an close collaboration with DNV, in which we add value to each other," says Kulovaara. "We have well-defined roles. We have been able to build on our continuous collaboration with innovation and a constant push that has given us both success in this exciting and challenging market."
Step by step measures
In just the past five years, RCCL has doubled its fleet capacity and its number of employees. That means numerous challenges for a company like RCCL, where only the best is good enough for the passengers.
"In cooperation with DNV, we have implemented logical step-by-step measures in areas such as strength, comfort and reliability. We have always learned a lot from each other," says Kulovaara.
Kulovaara is from Finland, and earned his engineering degree in Helsinki. In the past, he worked for Lloyd's Register and spent no less than 19 years working for Silja Line before joining RCCL nine years ago. He remains convinced that cruise is the world's best form of holiday.
High expectations
"According to our continuous surveys, 90 percent of our passengers say that their last cruise was just as good, or better, than their previous best holiday experience. These survey results create incredibly high expectations for us, especially in an industry that, in complexity, has been compared to operating a nuclear power plant, a hotel and a small airline company all at the same time. Remember, we have employees from 100 different nations, with no industrial experience - and there's no business school that teaches you what to do. On an annual basis, we have 2.4 million passengers, make 5,000 port calls, and have a staff of 22,000 -- 24,000 when the company accepts delivery of its next ship from the Meyer Werft yard in Papenburg, Germany in April." *
"If we are going to maintain the quality of our crews, we must have a well-defined quality programme and quality-management systems. We must have a clear structure and clear policies, and we must be sure to communicate our expectations and to measure and implement corrective actions when these prove necessary."
Holistic approach
Brand quality is Kulovaara's key word and mantra. RCCL wants to integrate all the elements of quality control into one holistic system that complies with the same principles everywhere and be consistent with the company's expectations, and ability to take corrective action.
He notes that DNV's International Maritime Safety Rating System (IMSRS) is a valuable system for RCCL. "This is one of the best tools we know of," he says. "And it helps to develop our overall management culture. IMSRS has been adapted to each ship, so that the crew themselves can recognise the developments and improvements. And it's good to see that we are constantly achieving better results. At the same time, we have new 'Eureka!' experiences all the time. We are constantly learning something, whether about fire-safety related to cleaning kitchens, or completely different issues. I don't know of any other company with which we have as close a relationship as we do with DNV. While our 35 year history with DNV began with the hardware - the vessels themselves - we have spent the last decade working with them to help manage our crew and human resources issues."
Managing risk
Kulovaara notes the major change that has taken place in the USA in relation to corporate governance, especially regarding how many regulatory authorities the company has to work with.
"A lot can also be pulled over to financial risk management," he says. "We need to manage our risks - to prevent accidents and have proactive plans. To know in advance what can go wrong and to make sure it does not go wrong. When we think through these issues in advance, we have a better understanding of what we must do and not do. Among other things, we have a systematic programme based on risk studies for docking and modifying ships and for newbuildings. Here we have established an extensive collaboration with DNV. The key words here are 'What if?' New rules for newbuildings are about to be introduced and I'm convinced that we will have a positive payoff on our efforts here."
"Total Guest Satisfaction"
Kulovaara has a compass by which he and his fleet operations - including the maritime and hotel operations - are to be run. "Total Guest Satisfaction" is the focus and core of this program. Financial performance and shareholder value, employee satisfaction, safety and compliance, and personal and professional integrity are the four directions that must be balanced in order to make everything succeed.
"We have 16 key performance indicators. All the trends are constantly moving in the right direction. But we are aiming higher - we must always continue to work on integrity and quality. We are focusing on openness and being as transparent as possible. We report all incidents and near-misses - anything at all - 1,600 cases a year. This is not window-dressing," says Kulovaara. As the head of both the maritime part and hotel part of the business, Kulovaara has one team and one vision. This team, unified under one manager, has resulted in better understanding, less internal competition and a single culture. "This is about teamwork - one organisation that takes care of the entire shipboard operations. An organisation in which everyone knows where we are going."