A Team Effort

All stateroom deck furniture arrived and was loaded on Lido Deck aft, Deck 9. A production line of crew was formed that included numerous departments to help out, including beverage, spa, culinary and many others. They passed deck furniture hand to hand from Deck 9 down the staircases to Deck 5 and then down the coridors to be placed on stateroom verandahs.

Solving the Puzzle of Crew Cabin Assignments

One of the biggest tasks to be completed during a newbuild process is assigning all of the crew cabins. It is a difficult task and is very much like putting together a giant puzzle. What makes it so intricate is that different factors have to be considered in every decision. You must keep in mind different departments, ranks, functions, changes in number of personnel, crew nationalities and gender while working to integrate locations and maintain an efficient mapping system. This is all compounded by the logistics of a new ship layout.

Before starting with the cabin assignments, we need to have a final Table of Personnel, or TOP, that is to say a count of the total number of crew in each department and function on board. As you are already aware, the Eurodam is the first of a new class of vessels for Holland America Line, the Signature class. This means that although the Eurodam is still very similar in appearance to our Vista-class ships, there are significant changes in some of the internal layouts, including the crew cabins areas. Additionally, with several new venues offered, such as the Tamarind and Canaletto restaurants, there is an increase in the number of crew on board.

After receiving the final TOP from our Seattle Human Resources Department we started with the assignment project. We brought along a box full of Noordam deck plans and files to aid us in our comparison. As you can see from the picture below this project required a lot of space to spread out the deck plans while Purser Marantha Aryaguna and I worked.

Some crew cabin areas were not affected by any changes and could be allocated easily, however, there were also many crewmembers that needed relocation. The first task we concentrated on was assigning cabins for key engineers and officers. We wrote their functions in the appropriate cabins on the deck plan, while simultaneously inputting the information into an Excel table on a laptop. This system provided us with a way to doublecheck all information and ensures that the cabins assigned are correct.

In addition to this, certain functions were also upgraded or downgraded in status. Any changes in status result in crew moving from inside cabins (without windows) to outside cabins or vice versa. All such changes have to be verified with the relevant planning manager in Seattle to ensure consistency.

Once we finished with the cabin allocation of engine, navigational and hotel officers, we moved on to petty officer berthing. Petty officer berthing is complicated by the fact that some are contracted to share rooms while others are not. All petty officer cabins, both single and shared, have private bathrooms and are entitled to daily cleaning services provided by housekeeping attendants.

We carefully mapped the areas that we needed to consider, concentrating as well on the distance to their working areas. This is especially important for petty officers involved with emergency duties (i.e., firefighters, etc.). We then grouped everyone by department, function and according to nationality. Many of the petty officers supervise large numbers of crew and have to be placed close to their team for efficient coordination. An example of this is the boatswain who is in charge of sailors and boatman, another one would be the engine foreman who is in charge of the wipers and fireman greasers.

An additional challenge this time was the increase of female crew on board and the newly added staff compared to our other class ships. This makes cabin assignment more complex because a change in one section automatically affects the entire plan. With the increase of female crew, an area was needed where they could be blocked together, allowing them more privacy and comfort. Finally, after several attempts and revisions we were able to finish allocating the large number of crew cabins, keeping them close to their department with groups of other crew in the same functions and together with crew of the same nationality.

After head office approval, the final task in all of this is to insert the finalized cabin assignment table into the Crew Administration Payroll, or CAP, system. This system is connected to the Fidelio security system where all crew data is updated according to relevant cabins. This final task is the responsibility of the human resources officer who prints and activates the room key cards which also serve as crew ID cards.

The Crew Gets Uniforms

On Saturday, June 7, all crew started wearing uniforms.

Therefore, in preparation of this, on Thursday, June 6, Tetet Prihatnoko, the Eurodam chief housekeeper, pressed and handed over uniforms to Captain Jeroen van Donselaar (right) and me so we could get ready for this important day.

Tetet confirmed that all uniforms have been handed out to all crew on board. The uniforms have been washed and pressed and we are ready to start wearing them.

Now with us all in uniforms, the ship looks even more complete and the Eurodam Team is ready for action.

Staterooms are Rigorously Inspected

At certain points during the construction of a stateroom, inspections are done by both CCS (Carnival Corporate Shipbuilding) and Holland America Line. These inspections start at a very early stage of the newbuild and continue until the date of the official delivery of Eurodam.

The inspections by the inspectors of CCS are very extensive; every aspect of the ship is examined (technical, electrical, construction, architectural, etc.). A detailed process is followed to ensure nothing is missed. Several inspections are performed by the CCS inspectors before the ship is judged to be ready to be occupied by our guests.

A technical inspection is performed before the ceiling is closed. There is a huge amount of pipes and wires behind the ceiling.

Another example of an inspection — before the carpet is installed the cement floor is inspected.

The inspection starts with basic functional checks. Sapri Ali is checking the power supply to the outlets above the desk.

Tetet Prihatnoko checks the quality of the curtains in the stateroom while Sapri Ali writes down his comments.

Mustika Katon inspects the bathroom. Here he is inspecting the signage to make sure is it the correct sign and is properly installed.

Sheryl Manalo inputs all inspection results into the computer.

Housekeeping Department supervisors include (from left) Herman Lantman, lead chief housekeeper; Agnello d’Souza, assistant housekeeper; Stan Kuppens, hotel manager, and Mustika Katon, chief housekeeper.

Housekeeping Department’s Newbuild Setup

With approximately one more month to go before the official delivery of Eurodam, it is a good time to inform our Eurodam Blog readers about the newbuild set-up conducted by the Housekeeping Department.

One of the largest assignments of the Eurodam housekeeping newbuild team is the inspections of the staterooms. I will go into detail about these stateroom inspections in my next post, but first I want to briefly describe the way a stateroom is constructed.

All staterooms consist of two main areas: the bedroom and the bathroom.

In the photo you see some prefabricated bathroom units located on the pier, ready to be lifted on to the ship.

The bedrooms are constructed inside the ship. First, all wires and pipes are installed; after that, the walls are put in place.

After the walls are in position, the ceiling is installed.

When the ceiling and walls are in position, the larger pieces of furniture are placed and mounted to the floor or wall. After that, it is time for the carpet.

All smaller pieces of furniture (beds, nightstands, sofa, etc.) are placed in the stateroom. In the photo you can see the parts of the sofa are still in boxes.

At this point the staterooms are almost ready. Mattresses are placed and smaller items like artwork, bed lights, curtains, etc., are installed.

Once the signage and outlet covers are installed, the stateroom is ready to be turned over to Holland America Line.

Eurodam has 4,528 Keys

Did you ever wonder how the different doors, pantries, lockers and spaces with doors are being locked on board? Of course, you need things to open these spaces and that is the beauty of a key. The Eurodam, being the first in its class, boasts a huge collection of keys. All in all it has 4,528 keys (four sets total). Organizing, tagging and labeling the keys to match the correct door is a huge undertaking.

This has been done on the previous ships and it is done by the guest relations manager in collaboration with the chief officer who, in the end, is responsible for safekeeping the keys. The keys were manufactured by Trioving, a company from Norway that has been supplying the ship’s keys for many HAL newbuilds and is also doing it for the Eurodam delivery.

The first step is to ensure that all tags were ordered via the chief officer. Every department has its own color of key tag.

Below is the listing of all colors and their departments:

DESIGNATED COLORS PER DEPARTMENT
LIGHT BLUE: Engine
DARK BLUE: Deck
RED: Emergency
YELLOW: Housekeeping
WHITE: Hotel/Administration
PURPLE: Food & Beverage
GREEN: Medical
ORANGE: Entertainment/Cruise

MASTER KEYS AND SUB-MASTER KEYS
With the individual keys come the master keys. These are under the care of the chief officer, and he signs them off to the different departments. There are different kinds of keys, as follows:

The EMK is an overall master and is used as an emergency master key. This key will open deadbolt locks on cabins and all lockers, etc.

The GMK is known as the general master key and is for all the doors, offices, lockers, steward stations, etc., and any lock on board that is not a cabin.

The ECO key is the yard-level key for all cabins. Once the ship starts to sail the ECO key should be moved up a notch to the next level, making the ECO useless to add security as ECOs often get lost during cleaning or loading, etc. That is the worst-case scenario, as it is imperative those who sign for a master key treat it like gold and look after it.

Then the next step is to check with the locking plan of the ship and the Trioving Excel file, and compare them. Here, all the spaces that need to be locked that were on the Trioving list, but not indicated on the locking plan and vice versa have to be noted. Afterward the chief officer will be advised of any irregularities and then Trioving will be notified. Other plans like fire door plans of the ship sometimes have to be consulted as well to get the accurate door location and name. Having done that, there will be spaces that will come out which were not in the Trioving list to have keys, but need to be locked as per the locking plan.

Next will come the delivery of the hard product, the keys! These keys come in little baggies, in sets of four per deck. The keys are cross-checked with the Trioving Excel file and the Trioving key delivery file, and most of the time there are some spaces that do not have keys made and Trioving has to be advised of this.

After the entire cross-checking is done, the merging of the labels for the correct keys follows and then the labels will be printed. Following this comes the major task of inserting the correct labels into the correct key tag per department per deck.

For so many deliveries now, the loading team helps to complete this project. A group of four guys from the loading team sits with the GRM and starts tagging the keys. This takes at least two to three weeks for the whole roster of keys to be tagged, provided that all tags are completed, since pending tag arrival could also impede the process.

Once all keys are labeled, they are placed on a ring. All keys are arranged per the key file list per department per deck. Then, the lengthy and careful task of cross-checking again for the final time is done to ensure that each department got the right key on the ring itself before closing off the ring. The chief officer gets a copy of all the keys, plus the cabinet keys and the padlock keys. In totality, all the keys that he gets end up in a huge box due to the huge number of keys.

When all of the above process is done, the distribution of the keys to the different heads of departments follows. Each head of department will sign off that they received their keys. The Engine Department gets the biggest chunk of keys, followed by the Housekeeping Department from the Hotel Department, and the Medical Department gets the smallest number of keys, 12 kinds of four sets, to be exact. This culminates the key project, which basically is the grand task of labeling the right key for the correct lockable space.

First Look at the Galley

Eurodam Hotel Manager and Blog Board member Stan Kuppens has arrived at the shipyard and sent us some new photos yesterday. He gave us the first look at the ship’s galley.

“As you can see, the galley equipment is starting to come in,” Stan wrote in an e-mail. “In several parts of the galley and storerooms the walls are up. They are working hard to get the rooms ready and operational for the sea trials scheduled in March and April.”

Eurodam to Feature ‘Wet Cleaning’ System for Garments

‘Wet cleaning’ is an environmentally responsible alternative to traditional dry cleaning

With environmental concerns taking center stage in recent years and the move toward being more green on the rise, Holland America Line is taking a look at various operations on board that offer more environmentally friendly solutions.

One such area is that of garment dry cleaning, which involves a variety of solvents and chemicals that require strict handling and disposal guidelines governed by international laws. The solution? Change the cleaning system.

Eurodam will be outfitted with an environmentally friendly system called wet cleaning from Canadian supplier Solvent Free Solutions, using detergents manufactured by Winning Brands Corp. The alternative to traditional on-board dry cleaning is already being used on eight other Holland America Line vessels.

The Solvent Free Solutions team designs and installs systems that permit garments labeled “dry clean only‚” to be cleaned instead using Smart Wet Cleaning Liquids, plain water and special Wet Cleaning machines. The systems provide a safer, environmentally responsible alternative to old-fashioned perchlorethylene-based dry cleaning systems.

Premium Crew: Training For Excellence Part II

Lance Camarena, Holland America’s director of corporate training and development

Lance Camarena, director of corporate training and development for Holland America Line, has an important task ahead: ensuring that the Eurodam crew is ready for the first guests who sail in July 2008. ENB sat down with Camarena last week, and today we reveal the details of how he accomplishes this daunting task when he arrives at Eurodam just three weeks before the launch to train the new ensemble of crew members.

Through years of experience and numerous ship launches, Camarena says he found that the most effective time for training was before the ship set sail, as it gives the crew time for lectures and training activities without the added pressure of having guests on board.

“Veendam was the first newbuild where we got on board to train as part of the pre-build process, but the training experience really came to maturity with the Vista-class ships,” said Camarena. “On a newbuild, 80 percent of the crew and 95 percent of the officers are seasoned, hand-chosen, experienced people. We’re not doing the ABC kind of training with them.”

Once on board, Camarena and his team take the stateroom closest to the hotel manager’s office, empty it out and make it their on-board headquarters. “We use the opportunity of being on the ship to create new training materials and adapt materials to new situations,” said Camarena. “We’ll also trial new training initiatives.”

Camarena compares getting a new ship and its crew ready to moving into a new house or office: you still have day-to-day chores like cooking and cleaning to complete in addition to making the new place ready to move into. His challenge is to weave in training while preparing the ship.

To help him in the training process, over the years he has partnered with a seasoned hotel manager, Rene Tuinman, a veteran of numerous newbuilds. Tuinman serves as liaison between the ship and the corporate office.

“By partnering with Rene, I found I could be doubly effective,” said Camarena. “His inside perspective gives us the flexibility to work around the crew’s schedule to set up a better-organized program for training. It enables us to take training from the five-star to the 6.5-star level.”

While the training primarily is focused on the hotel side of the operation, the training department still looks across the fleet for common areas of concern. And all crew are reminded of the premium attributes that contribute to the overall Holland America Line experience. The training period on board also serves as a good time for crew to brush up on their language skills and learn about different cultures. Because HAL caters to an international clientele, crew must learn to adapt their levels of personal service and understand the preferences that different cultures enjoy.

To give the crew realistic training experiences, Camarena likes to run different areas of the ship as if guests were on board. He shuts down the crew mess areas for dinner and opens the dining room and the Lido several times for the restaurant teams to practice.

“Dining room staff serve their fellow crewmembers as if they were passengers, and the crew even dine off of the real HAL menu, giving the galley staff a chance to prepare the cuisine that guests will enjoy,” he said. “For many crewmembers, it’s the first and only time they will get to dine in the dining room. Likewise, for entertainment, the production cast runs dress rehearsals of the shows for the crew exactly as they will be for guests.”

Camarena likes to keep shipboard training fun

And Camarena always leaves time for fun and games. He likes to pump up the crew with various competitions. One of the favorites is the dining room competition where he challenges the staff to set up a series of dining room tables while working against the clock. The team with the lowest time and a perfect setup — measured to the millimeter — wins.

In addition to making the crew ready before the first guests embark, Camarena’s overall goal is to give the management teams on board the proper tools to continue training the crew after he’s moved on.

“We do a lot of training the trainers,” he said. “We work with the management teams so they can work with their crew teams to make sure we maintain our high standards.”

Premium Crew: Training for Excellence

The ms Nieuw Jakarta school in Indonesia

ENB recently sat down with Lance Camarena, director of corporate training and development, to learn how Holland America Line gets new employees ready to hit the high seas and provide the HAL premium experience.

Holland America Line operates two service-staff training schools, one in Jakarta, Indonesia — where 60 percent of crew originate — and one in Manila, the Philippines, which accounts for 30 percent of crewmembers.

The school in Jakarta, known as ms Nieuw Jakarta, was started 26 years ago and has continued to expand over the years. In a year when a newbuild will be delivered, more than a thousand trainees pass through the school to meet the increased demand for crew.

When applying to the school, Camarena explained, new students are given an English test to assess their level of competence. If they pass the test and meet other recruiting requirements, such as having previous hotel experience, they are admitted to an intense program that lasts a minimum of eight weeks.

All newbies spend the first five weeks in English classes making sure they can communicate effectively with Holland America Line guests. Once that course is passed, students move on to train in a specific area, such as housekeeping or dining room wait staff.

Students mastering dining room wait staff skills attend classes in uniform to authenticate the experience

At the ms Nieuw Jakarta school, everything is set up to emulate the shipboard milieu so crew can become familiar with the smallest details. Mock cabins have HAL linens and layouts, and dining room tables are set with HAL china, crystal and flatware, according to Camarena.

During a class, students are exposed to actual HAL food and beverage accessories

Once the crew have mastered their new skills and passed a final English exam, they are distributed among Holland America Line’s 13 ships. The class’ top performers earn the distinction of crewing on the newbuild.

The training doesn’t stop once they leave school, though. Employees are required to return to school in order to move up the promotion ladder, for refresher courses and to polish their skills. They also serve as mentors to new students.

The school in Manila opened its doors in February 2007. Currently offering dining room and front office training for new hires and refresher courses for repeaters, the school plans to offer a galley program by the end of the year. English courses aren’t offered in Manila, as English is widely spoken and the Filipinos’ language skills usually meet or exceed HAL’s requirements.

Next we’ll tell you what Camarena will do on board Eurodam to get the crew passenger-ready in time for the ship to welcome its first guest.