In 2024, there are over 1.2 million certified Project Management Professionals worldwide. Companies pay them $80,000-150,000 annually to plan projects, control costs, manage risks, and meet deadlines.
IT companies hire them. Construction firms hire them. Supply chain operations hire them. Manufacturing plants hire them.
How many dedicated stowage planners work on feeder operations?
Almost none.
The Chief Officer does it. In 3 hours. Between safety inspections and port paperwork. With no formal planning methodology. With no KPIs. With no performance tracking.
And somehow, we accept this as normal.
The Project Management Revolution
Thirty years ago, IT projects failed constantly. Over budget. Behind schedule. Wrong deliverables. The industry was chaos.
Then something changed.
Companies started hiring dedicated professionals whose only job was planning and coordination. They followed structured methodologies. They tracked metrics. They managed risks before they became problems.
The results were dramatic:
| Before PM discipline | After PM discipline |
|---|---|
| 70% projects over budget | 30% over budget |
| 60% missed deadlines | 25% missed deadlines |
| Constant firefighting | Proactive management |
| Blame culture | Process improvement |
The Project Management Institute (PMI) codified best practices into the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge). It became a science. Companies that adopted it outperformed those that didn’t.
Today, no serious IT company runs projects without dedicated project managers. The ROI is proven. The debate is over.
What a Project Manager Actually Does
A project manager doesn’t write code. They don’t install servers. They don’t design interfaces.
They do something more valuable: they ensure the project succeeds.
Planning: Define scope, timeline, resources, and deliverables before work begins.
Coordination: Align multiple teams, resolve conflicts, manage dependencies.
Risk management: Identify what could go wrong and prepare mitigation strategies.
Cost control: Track budget, forecast overruns, optimize resource allocation.
Performance tracking: Measure KPIs, identify trends, drive continuous improvement.
Stakeholder management: Communicate with everyone who needs to know.
None of this is the work itself. All of it is what makes the work succeed.
The project manager thinks about the project so others can focus on execution.
The Shipping Parallel
Now let’s look at a container vessel rotation.
The project: Move 2,500 containers across 7 ports in 7 days.
The stakeholders: Ship owner, charterer, terminals, agents, cargo interests, crew.
The constraints: Stability limits, draft restrictions, tidal windows, crane availability, cargo priorities.
The risks: Weather delays, equipment failures, cargo damage, missed connections.
The budget: Fuel costs, port fees, overtime, restow charges.
This is a project. A complex, multi-stakeholder, time-sensitive, high-value project.
Who’s the project manager?
On a mainliner: a dedicated shore planning team with specialized tools and defined processes.
On a feeder: the Chief Officer, who has 17 other responsibilities and 3 hours to plan.
The KPI Problem
Ask any IT project manager about their KPIs. They’ll list a dozen:
- Sprint velocity
- Bug count
- Deployment frequency
- Customer satisfaction
- Budget variance
- Schedule performance index
These are tracked daily. Analyzed weekly. Improved continuously.
Now ask a feeder operator about their stowage KPIs.
Restow rate? “We don’t track that.”
Trim optimization percentage? “What do you mean?”
Crane split efficiency? “The terminal handles that.”
Slot utilization by port? “We load what we’re given.”
Cost per TEU moved? “That’s in the finance reports somewhere.”
Most feeder operators have no idea how well or poorly their stowage planning performs. They don’t measure it. They can’t improve what they don’t measure.
On mainliners, we track everything:
| KPI | Target | Action if missed |
|---|---|---|
| Restow rate | Below 5% | Root cause analysis |
| Trim deviation | Within 0.3m of optimal | Planner coaching |
| Crane split variance | Below 10% | Terminal coordination |
| Capacity utilization | Above 92% | Commercial review |
| On-time departure | Above 95% | Process improvement |
This isn’t bureaucracy. This is how you turn planning from guesswork into science.
Why Other Industries Invested
IT didn’t hire project managers because they had extra money. They hired them because NOT having them was more expensive.
The calculation:
| Factor | Without PM | With PM |
|---|---|---|
| Project overruns | 40% average | 15% average |
| Failed projects | 25% | 8% |
| Rework costs | High | Low |
| Team productivity | Firefighting mode | Focused execution |
A $100,000 project manager who prevents one $500,000 failure pays for themselves 5x over.
Construction figured this out. Supply chain figured this out. Manufacturing figured this out.
The shipping industry, especially feeder operations, hasn’t figured this out yet.
We still treat planning as a side task. Something the Chief Officer does between their real responsibilities. Something that doesn’t need dedicated resources or systematic approaches.
And we pay for it. Every rotation. In restows. In fuel waste. In missed capacity. In delays.
We just don’t track it, so we don’t see it.
The Mainliner Model
On major container lines, stowage planning is a profession.
Shore planners are dedicated specialists. They handle 15-20 vessels each. They use sophisticated software. They follow defined processes. They track KPIs obsessively.
The planning department reports to senior operations management. Planning quality is a strategic priority.
The results:
| Metric | Mainliner average | Industry recognition |
|---|---|---|
| Restow rate | 2-4% | Best in class |
| Schedule reliability | 85-92% | Competitive advantage |
| Fuel efficiency | Optimized | Cost leadership |
| Capacity utilization | 93-97% | Revenue maximization |
This isn’t because mainliners have better ships or smarter crews. It’s because they invested in planning as a discipline.
They have project managers for their cargo. Feeders don’t.
The Feeder Reality
A typical feeder operation:
Planning responsibility: Chief Officer (secondary duty)
Planning time: 3-4 hours per port
Planning methodology: None formal
Planning tools: Basic stability software
KPIs tracked: Zero
Performance reviews: Never
Training: On the job
Improvement process: Non-existent
This isn’t a criticism of Chief Officers. They’re competent professionals doing an impossible job.
It’s a criticism of the system that expects them to perform project management functions without project management resources.
The Question Nobody Asks
When a rotation has problems, what do we ask?
“What went wrong?”
“Who made the mistake?”
“How do we fix this shipment?”
We never ask the real question:
“Why don’t we have someone whose job is preventing these problems?”
When an IT project fails, nobody blames the developers for not being better project managers. They ask why there wasn’t a project manager in the first place.
When a stowage plan causes problems, we blame the Chief Officer. We never ask why they were expected to do professional planning work as a side task with no resources, no methodology, and no time.
What Project Management Brings to Shipping
Imagine applying PM discipline to feeder operations:
Dedicated planning function: Someone whose only job is optimizing stowage.
Defined methodology: Standard processes for every rotation, every port.
Proactive risk management: Port constraints checked before loading, not discovered on arrival.
KPI tracking: Restow rates, trim deviation, crane splits measured every rotation.
Continuous improvement: Monthly reviews, trend analysis, process refinement.
Stakeholder coordination: Agency, terminal, vessel aligned before cargo is loaded.
This is what mainliners have. This is what project management brings to any complex operation.
The technology exists. The methodologies exist. The only missing piece is the decision to invest.
The ROI Calculation
Let’s be conservative:
| Current state (no dedicated planning) | Cost |
|---|---|
| Excess restows (20 extra per rotation) | $5,000-10,000 |
| Suboptimal trim (2-3% fuel waste) | $2,000-4,000 |
| Poor crane splits (30 min extra per port) | $1,500-3,000 |
| Missed capacity (5% slot loss) | $3,000-6,000 |
| Total per rotation | $11,500-23,000 |
| Annual (50 rotations) | $575,000-1,150,000 |
Cost of dedicated shore planning: $18,000-36,000 per vessel per year.
ROI: 15-60x.
This is why IT companies hire project managers. This is why construction firms hire site managers. The math works.
The Mindset Shift
The question isn’t “Can we afford dedicated planning?”
The question is “Can we afford not to have it?”
Every other industry answered this question decades ago. They invested in planning professionals. They developed methodologies. They tracked performance. They improved continuously.
Shipping, especially feeder operations, still treats planning as overhead rather than investment.
The Chief Officer still does it in 3 hours.
Nobody tracks KPIs.
Nobody measures improvement.
Nobody asks why.
The Opportunity
The feeder operators who figure this out first will have a significant advantage.
Lower costs. Better reliability. Higher capacity utilization. Happier customers.
While competitors continue improvising, early adopters will be optimizing.
The project management revolution transformed IT in the 1990s. Construction in the 2000s. Supply chain in the 2010s.
Shipping feeder operations in the 2020s?
The tools exist. The methodologies exist. The professionals exist.
The only question is: who moves first?
Every industry invested in planning professionals. Shipping hired nobody. That’s about to change.