“Train the Trainers” sessions for the NS platform took place from October 13th to November 9th. These courses were directed towards key users from all operations and representatives from Maintenance and Purchasing.

“The 24 two-hour sessions were designed to give participants in-depth knowledge of the system and tools for teaching their coworkers how to operate it, thus strengthening implementation and use at each operation,” commented Carolina Luengo, Head of Projects for Human Resources at SAAM Towage, who is in charge of the training process.

At the first session, the facilitators welcomed the team, explained their role in the project and gave an overview of the training. They also had all participants go around and introduce themselves.

Subsequent sessions centered around training by the supplier (ABS), distributed into the following modules: Maintenance, Purchasing, Dry Docking, Document Management, Reporting, KPIs and Use of the Mobile App.

Following the first session, Carolina Brailow, a key user from SAAM Towage Mexico’s Maintenance Department, remarked, “Up to now each document in the system has been explained in great detail, which is very positive. At the end, once each document has been clarified, I think they should give examples of daily processes from start to finish.”

She added, “I feel good about the system and think that the true challenge lies in training the crew and administrative personnel so they adjust to the changes quickly. But it’s nothing that can’t be accomplished in time. Luckily, in Mexico we have already been using NS for 2 years. I wish my coworkers in the other countries great success.”

As for next steps, ABS is conducting training sessions for office personnel in Panama, the first country to implement the system.