Welcome to our series, Meet the User, designed to give our customers a voice and our readers the opportunity to gain an insider perspective on our products and solutions. Through this series, we aim to connect and educate the shipping community, and inspire innovation and industry growth.
Meet Jon Cosio, Database Coordinator at Odfjell.
Odfjell is one of the world leaders in the global market for seaborne transportation and storage of chemicals and other specialty bulk liquids. Established in 1914, it pioneered the development of the chemical tanker trade in the 1950s and the tank storage business in the late 1960s.
Interviewer: Tor-Arne Berger, Q88 Product Manager
Tor-Arne: Hi Jun, thank you again for taking time out of your busy schedule to participate in our series. To start off, how often in your daily work would you say that you’re using Q88?
Jun Cosio: Every day. There are particular modules like the Officer Matrix that are especially important to our business, and I monitor for changes and use HVPQ almost every day.
Q88 is also used frequently by our commercial operators when booking cargoes. Since it must be updated so frequently—with changes to certificates, surveys, equipment tests, and more—it is very popular and useful for my team. It is important for us to ensure we keep it up-to-date at all times with the latest inspection information and other changes.
Tor-Arne: What are the key benefits or features of Q88 for your role?
Jun: I would definitely have to say data. Data is key to decision making, and you never know when you may need certain pieces of historical data—it often proves really valuable to have accurate, standardized data on hand. Q88 allows me to capture data straight from the vessel and use it for future decisions.
Tor-Arne: Since you’ve been working from home, how have Q88’s cloud-based solutions helped you navigate remote work?
Jun: They’ve helped tremendously. During the pandemic, as many people did, I worked entirely from home for two years. Now, I occasionally go into the office when important things come up, but remote work is still very prevalent within our organization. Q88 definitely made the work-from-home transition quite seamless, as we had no disruption in access when we shifted to remote work.
Tor-Arne: For many of us,the pandemic definitely changed how we work. Would you say there have been any permanent changes to the way you work post-COVID?
Jun: I have actually found that working from home, especially with the Q88 tools, has had a lot of advantages. I’m tasked with answering a lot of questionnaires and updating other databases, and I found that I am able to maximize my working time and productivity by being at home. I update information for around 50% of the ships at Odfjell, which currently has around 100 ships, including time-chartered and externally managed vessels. We also have seven or eight different types of tankers, and information can vary significantly ship-to-ship.
I am also responsible for inputting initial vetting data that Superintendents then take to close and confirm findings. It can be quite tedious, and having the flexibility to work from home while maintaining easy access to Q88 has helped in many ways.
Tor-Arne: What, if anything, would be an additional feature that you’d like to see added to Q88?
Jun: That’s a great question. Q88 already has many important features that are integral to our work. The last one that really stands out is the vetting module, which has been extremely useful.
The one thing I can think of would be helping to streamline the data entry process. While it is usually seamless, and there are features to save one entry to every vessel, any additional shortcuts that can be added to assist in quicker data entry would be great.
Tor-Arne: Thanks, Jun. That’s interesting input, and we really appreciate it. Thank you so much for taking the time!
