SUBHEAD IUM According to IUM Shipmanagement in Grimstad, Norway, at least 80 per cent of all shipping accidents are caused by human error. "But I would say it is not caused by human error onboard - most errors are caused by human errors on shore," says Hans Richard Hansen, president. "When you see the Erika and Prestige - I think you can safely say they were caused by something going wrong ashore - the seafarers are more victims than the criminals. That is a very seriously and deeply felt opinion." Mr Hansen believes that the biggest challenge OSM faces is the shipboard personnel. "I think personnel is the most important issue in any industry," he says. "We have 70 people and $2m equity. The value is in the 70 people, not the $2m." IUM has a comprehensive seafarer training program, which involves a mixture of classroom and computer based training. It organises two conferences a year for its officers. It holds classroom training courses for its Polish seafarers in Poland. SUBHEAD Key performance indicators IUM tracks the performance of its shore and ship staff with key performance indicators, covering injuries, pollution incidents and unscheduled vessel offhire. The health target - no fatalities or major accidents, was met in both 2002 and 2003. For lost time injury, the company counted 4.9 cases per million working hours in 2002, and 1.26 in 2003. For environmental impacts which could have been avoided, it had one case of water with soot in it going into the sea in 2002, and nothing in 2003. For oil spill, there were 2 litres in 2002, and none in 2003. For percentage ships availability, the company's target is one day unscheduled offhire per year, or 99.7 per cent availability. It achieved 99.5 per cent availability in 2002 and 99.13 per cent in 2003. For port state control detentions, there were no detentions recorded in either 2002 or 2003. The target is less than 1 finding per inspection; it recorded 0.1 finding per inspection in 2002 and 1 in 2003. For oil company vettings, the target is less than one "finding" per inspection, with a "no finding" defined as the ship being in perfect order. "It is very difficult to pass oil company vetting without some kind of comments," says Mr Hansen. "That is why oil companies are there." Nevertheless, IUM had a target of less than 3 "minor" findings per oil company vetting, and recorded a result of 1.6 in 2002 and 2.23 in 2003. IUM is a company which sees regulation as an area it can achieve competitive advantage. "We don't mind regulation because we think we will be better at complying with them than others," the company says. SUBHEAD Company Services IUM offers include crewing, insurance, purchasing, accounting, sale and purchase assistance, IT implementation and maintenance. It does engineering consultancy (project development) and a small group doing chartering and post fixture. It plans and supervises dry-docking. It handles seafarer liaison in China, and Poland, and shipyard liaison in Japan and South Korea, with consulting on marine applications for other companies. The largest part of IUM's business is managing shuttle tankers on behalf of its parent company, Teekay. Altogether it looks after 15 shuttle tankers with Teekay/Ugland, 1 FSO, 14 reefers, 2 car carriers, 3 tankers, 1 ro/ro trailer ferry in the Baltic, 2 shuttle tankers for Petrobras. It looks after crew only on 15 further reefers, 1 car carrier, 2 FPSOs and is assisting with newbuild management on 1 container ship, 9 bulkers, 1 suezmax, and 1 chemical tanker. The company has over 1,000 seafarers onboard at any time, with a pool of 1500. SUBHEAD IT On the information technology side, the company offers IT outsourcing services; it recently signed a deal with Stolt to look after management of onboard and onshore planned maintenance systems, including looking after all the spares. It is converting Stolt to a new planned maintenance system, developed by JD Edwards, and converting its messaging software from Fleetworks (developed by MMS) to Xantic's AMOS. The company has a matrix based organisation chart, with ships divided into 10 "fleets". Each fleet has its own superintendent, purchasing and accounting personnel. SUBHEAD ISPS CODE On the ISPS code, IUM believes it is well ahead with its ISPS implementation, with systems implemented on all but 2 vessels, although at the time of interview (early March) there were only 3 vessels certified. The company is budgeting under $10,000 per vessel for the cost of the code. "We think there will be a significant problem getting vessels certified," says Rolf Axelson, vice president, marine. "Certification - that's the hard part. It's a yes or no. If you fail you don't get a 2nd chance. All other systems you get a list of deficiencies. Not with this." "Ships with no certificate are out of trade - and it can take months to fix it." IUM is training its ship security officers on shore, with Seagull computer based training software being used; the ship security officers can then train the rest of the crew in the office. SUBHEAD Technical developments On the technical side, IUM is moving towards condition based maintenance programs, which review whether maintenance is necessary based on an examination of the condition of the item; this is a more intelligent way of looking at maintenance than traditional hours based maintenance, when the manufacturer of equipment, with an interest in selling more spare parts, helpfully suggests how often a part should be replaced. Onboard ships there is a planned maintenance and spare part system; the chief engineer can select what is needed and send the requisition onshore; it is checked and then goes into the company's purchasing system. IUM uses ShipServ to connect its company purchasing system with some suppliers; for other areas it deals direct with Unitor. "In part of the purchases we do - we have a frame agreement with Unitor which gives us the more competitive prices than going to separate suppliers," says Mr Hansen. "But I think it's more logical to have an independent (ShipServ) doing the connecting rather than a system owned by a supplier." SUBHEAED OSM GROUP Norwegian shipmanagers OSM Group, which provides full technical management on 50 vessels and oilrigs, with and crewing on a further 210, has better treatment of seafarers as its unique selling proposition. "We think there should be a bit more to it [for seafarers] then than getting a ship from a to b," says Bjørn Tore Larsen, chairman. "We want people to see the possibility to get to the top." OSM aims to look after seafarers extremely well, selling up welfare centres in the Philippines for their families. "Being a seaman is a tough life," he says. "It helps if you know your family is well taken care of." ""We don't need a lot of superstars in this company - we need people who can work," he says. "They must have the appetite to win something." "For me it is about putting together a team that can work together," he says. "They have to have a heart." OSM has a crewing pool of 5,000 seafarers, of which 40 per cent are Philipinno, and has 250 people ashore. Most customers are Norwegian, with ships operating under the Norwegian flag. Mr Larsen began building the company as an 18 year old in 1986; having spent a year working onboard ships and saving about Eur 4,000, he managed to obtain a loan from a bank to buy a travel agency, which he ran for 3 years, with 3 friends. Having done some work arranging seafarer travel, and finding that it was often possible to get much better deals for customers than other travel agents by dealing direct with airline companies around the world, Mr Larsen decided to apply the same philosophy to arranging crewing, paying more attention to the human needs of seafarers and not ripping them off. "75 percent of management agents were screwing the seamen," he says. "They would take a little slice when seafarers sent money home." "We found the human element was not paid much attention at that time," he says. "Very few people talked about the value of people." SUBHEAD Høegh Fleet Services Høegh Fleet Services, which operates vessels for shipping company Leif Høegh, is estimating $50,000 per vessel as the cost of the ISPS code. "We started pretty early," says woman fleet manager. "We think we are in good progress. All the plans are ready now. They are in the process of being approved. First vessel is already certified. The last vessel will be finished at least this month." "It's been an interesting exercise," she says. "The code is not specific as you know." "We had lots of discussions within our company and outside to find out what level are we on and try to make plans that are simple to operate and get plans which are simple and safe." "The human factor is the most difficult - understanding what this is about. To get a deeper understanding of why we are doing it. " "A lot of people think its something we don't need," she says. "The officers have to have an understanding."