Knut Erik Fredriksen joined Odfjell in 2000 as Electrical Surveyor for the Electro & Automation group, which he led two years later. He became head of the Technology section in 2007 and has held that position until he was appointed VP Fleet Management in 2018.
Can you share with us your Odfjell story?
I started with Odfjell in May 2000, as Electrical Surveyor at the Electro & Automation group. I was Surveyor for two years and took over as manager for the group in 2002. At the time, only one Fleet Electrician was Filipino. When I left the group, only one of the Fleet Electricians was Norwegian, and the rest — I think there were five of them — were all Filipinos.
In 2007, I applied for the position as Head of the Technology section. I was happy for the possibility to take that challenge and hold the responsibility for all the technical disciplines of the Technology Section: the Electro & Automation group, which I initially led and from where I started; the Planned Maintenance group; the Steel Surveyors; the Machinery group; the Project Management group with Veine (Huth); and the Drydocking group with Oddvin (Ertesvåg) and Yoana (Valdivia).
I took over the Technology section at a time when we were becoming more cost-efficient, so it had been the transition to moving positions from Bergen to Manila. Among the transferred positions were those from Planned Maintenance, Machinery, and Electro & Automation. When I took over in 2007, the Technology section had 14 people in Bergen. When I left last year, the section was composed of seven people in Bergen, and 14 in Manila.
At the beginning of April last year, I took over as VP Fleet Management. It has been quite a hectic year, to be honest. We were in the middle of our transition after the decision to move Fleet Asia to Bergen. So during that time, many vessels were already handed over to Bergen and we had a lot of vessels coming in. We grew from 17 to 38 vessels during 2018. In addition, the number of people in Fleet Bergen doubled during the year. Not only did I transfer into a new position with a lot of new challenges that I was not familiar with, I also had many new vessels and new employees coming in. So that was quite hectic, but equally exciting because it was a very positive change for the Bergen office.
There are many new areas in the Fleet Management section, but it also deals with technical issues within the fleet even if we have the Technology section as support, so my background from Technology has provided a good balance. On the cost side, I have Geirmund (Drivenes) working with me. We are cooperating and have split the tasks a little bit between us because the fleet is now so big, that for me to take everything would be too much for one person.
What do you consider to be the highlights of your career?
Of course I am happy with achieving the various positions I have held within the company. But if we are talking about something that has been done during my time in Odfjell, I think the most important is the propulsion upgrade project with the Kværner and Poland vessels.
I might have been the head of the Technology section during that time, but the propulsion upgrade project would not have been possible for me to carry out if I did not have the right people in the group. The ideas came from the department, we discussed them, came up with a proposal which we put forward to the management and was approved. The project happened because of the good cooperation within the Techonology section.
The propulsion upgrade made the Kværner and Poland vessels efficient despite the age they are going into. This helped the company, too, because we had huge savings on fuel cost.
As VP Fleet Management, what will be your highest priorities in the near future?
The primary focus is, of course, safety. That's my highest belief, that safety is the most important thing, and that we should never compromise on safety.
Whatever we do — on board, on the way to the vessel, or in the office — we should always try to put safety as the top priority.
When I started in Odfjell in 2000, we had a Vetting department that looked after all the inspections, but we did not have someone responsible for safety. But in the last five years, a lot of improvement has happened. We now have a clear commitment on safety from the top all the way down in the organization, in all departments.
This commitment to safety is something I am very happy about, because my belief is that if we work safely and take control of all our risks in the things we are doing, then we will be more efficient in the long run.
The next priority is for the fleet to have good vetting performance. We are still struggling on that.
Bringing down the number of observations is important for us, of course, but the most important is for us to have fewer high risk observations.
The majority of the vessels have a good performance on the vettings. Our KPI is 3.6 observations on average and many vessels receive two and three, and sometimes one and sometimes zero which is very good. But then there are instances where a vessel has six, eight or ten observations, and these have a negative impact on our average performance. What we are doing is that we try to assist the vessels. We try to pinpoint the vessels which repeatedly receive a high number of observations and try to assist them.
It's important for me to address this matter in a positive way. If we are only punching the vessels with below average performance, then we are not getting in the right direction. We have to look at what they are good at and try to help them in the areas where they need assistance. Of course we have to discuss bad performance but not focus too hard on it because then we lose our efforts to move in the right direction.
Cost control is another focus area. And now with the new 12MAP system that we are implementing these days, I hope that we still can continue the solid cost control that we already have.
I would also like to emphasize good communication.
I always tell our superintendents that daily communication is important, that every MSI and TSI need to have constant communication with their vessels. This translates to better communication between ship and shore. The more you communicate, the better you get to know your colleagues on board the vessels. This makes it easier to sort out tasks or issues that may arise.
Apart from that, communication between the departments, for example, between crewing and fleet, or between operation and fleet, is very important. Equally vital is the communication within the fleet. So I think communication and cooperation are very important matters that we need to keep in mind every day. And of course, we need to treat each other with respect when we communicate.
Lastly, we should be happy to work for Odfjell. This is very important especially during the hard years when it is difficult to get a profit. But I hope and believe that the market will improve so we will see black numbers again in our results.
How do you see the Odfjell fleet in the next five years?
As I've said, I do hope that the market will improve and we will start making money again so we can continue the renewal of our fleet and reach the goal of 100 vessels in total. Then we will have among the youngest fleet in the chemical market.
How can the seafarers contribute to the achievement of these goals?
Our seafarers are vital in reaching our goals. They are the ones onboard our assets, and without our assets, we won't make money. So we have to work together, crewing and fleet, to make our seafarers able to utilize our vessels as efficient as possible.
We are here in the office to assist the seafarers, but it's a team effort. We are all in the same boat, so to say. So it is important for us to have good communication, and for the seafarers to never compromise on safety.
Who is Knut Erik outside Odfjell?
To be honest, I feel that the last year has been mostly within Odfjell because it has been very hectic and I've actually felt the pressure. But now, I feel that things are starting to come into place, and that I now know my tasks better.
Of course, my family comes first. I have two boys, one is 22 and has moved out, and the other is 18 and still lives at home. It's important for me to have a good relationship with my wife and kids.
I believe that to have a good balance in our lives, we need to have good relationships on both sides, with our colleagues at work, and with our family.
I like to spend my free time, weekends and holidays, with my family at our cottage. We go hiking and in the winter, we do a lot of skiing. Cross-country skiing is what I like the most.
I am also into cycling. I do road cycling with my sports group, and we join races in Bergen, in other places in Norway and sometimes outside Norway. I plan to do three or four races this year during the season, the longest of which will be 220 kilometers. I prepare for such races by doing regular training, sometimes I bike to and from work, and then I work out for a longer period on the bike during the weekends, from four to six hours. Cycling is actually a time-consuming sport. You have to spend a lot of hours on the bike to prepare for long races.
