MAIN HEAD DNV's Seaskills gains momentum DECK HEAD Class society Det Norske Veritas has embarked on an ambitious project, "SeaSkill," to try help shipping companies make sure all their staff are competent and enable them to demonstrate this. SeaSkill does not aim to replace the STCW, the standards for seafarers, but build on it - looking at areas where STCW does not cover (such as shipboard electrical installation skills and shore superintendents), helping shipping companies maintain a global standard and also looking at competence beyond the minimum compliance level. "National authorities are supposed to issue STCW certificates - we all know the quality of training differs widely," says Shankar A Narayan, marketing and sales manager of SeaSkill. "Legally, different certificates are the same. But the shipping industry uses a lot of time sorting out good schools from the bad ones." Following the scheme should be a good way for shipping companies to reduce their overall risk. "If you're trying to lower the risk of operation, human resource management is probably the next step," he says. "We are hoping the oil companies will tell the shipping companies, get all your people certified by DNV." Personnel with a DNV certificate should find themselves at the front of the queue if they are ever looking for work. The bulk of the costs for the initiative will be picked up by shipping companies, which want to make sure that all of their staff are competent. Certificates for the specific competences will be given out when the person has passed an exam, and will be valid for 3-5 years, after which the person will need to be retested and, if necessary, taught about any new developments in technology, law or procedure. The first step is to establish committees of experts, including shipowners, managers and training providers, in various cities of the world, to look at various positions and determine what competent standards are useful for the specific position - e.g. personal hygiene, safe electrical installations. The committees will then determine which standards need to be developed. Meetings have already been held in Oslo (ships superintendents), Miami (cruise), London (started Mar 11, looking at the tanker industry), Bombay, the Philippines and is planned for South Korea (shipyards). SeaSkill will develop a standard of competence for ship superintendents. "Normally, the wife says she'll leave if the seafarer doesn't come home, and that's how they start as a superintendent," he says. "But these superintendents have no global standard at all." SUBHEAD Three layers The standards have three layers - one looking at the whole company, one looking at the training and examining institutions and one looking at the individuals. The whole company must have a system to make sure that all their personnel are competent in what they do, in their different roles and systems to regularly evaluate if they meet the standards. The training institutions being used must be DNV approved that their courses and personnel examination programs are up to scratch. DNV is not necessarily determining how each competence should be assessed - it is leaving this to professional examiners in training institutions within the fraemwork of the Standard of Competence. The tests can be written, aural and practical. Finally, the individuals have their own competence assessed in the training institutions or in separate test centres, to make sure they meet the criteria defined by SeaSkills for the specific roles, following training procedures of the company. The result - all of the staff in a company are competent and they can prove it. DNV has already started certifying training courses - for example the ISPS ship security officer computer based training courses developed by Seagull are DNV approved. The scheme follows one already developed by DNV in the Netherlands to certify personnel in industries outside the maritime. This led to a contract the Dutch Navy signed with DNV for it to certify Dutch navy electricians. SUBHEAD DNV The number of ships on DNV's books is increasing at an astonishing rate, with almost straight-line growth since 1985, when it had about 45m gross tons, to today, when it has about 99m gross tons, about 17 per cent of the world shipping fleet. This is despite the fact that, according to many port state control figures from around the world, DNV is tougher than any other class society in making sure the ships are fit to sail. The overall detention record for DNV vessels over 2000-2002, for Paris MOU, Tokyo MOU and the US, shows that DNV vessels were detained in only 3 per cent of all port calls, the lowest figure for all class societies. All of the IACS members reported ratios of under 5 per cent - while some of the non-IACS class societies had detention ratios as high as 19 per cent. Looking at the number of vessels per class society which may be banned from EU ports if detained one more time, there are, according to EU's own data, only 3 DNV vessels on the list, the lowest of any class society. Clearly a growing number of shipowners want to meet higher standards and be able to demonstrate it, maintaining higher quality standards than the minimum. SUBHEAD Improving safety Despite the improving world maritime safety record, DNV wants to improve it further. "2004 has regrettable not started well for the shipping industry", says Terje Staalstrøm, senior vice president maritime with DNV. "There are more than 60 people missing from a ferry in the Philippines, 19 people missing from the Rocknes and 21 people that died on the Bow Mariner. Already 100 people have lives lost at sea." "You should strive for zero accidents, but realistically you have to admit something will eventually go wrong." "One accident is always one too many - we do whatever we can to improve our performance and reach zero levels." DNV has implemented 5 recent initiatives to improve the quality of DNV ships. It has appointed a 25-strong "flying squad," a team of 25 highly experienced surveyors ready to make surprise visits on DNV-classed vessels under suspicion of being substandard and make comprehensive checks. "When our head office decides we need to send these special people out, they are sent out," he says. "We want to have some ships surveyed by special surveyors." It has improved the monitoring of the ultrasonic thickness measurement (UTM) measuring and the companies that do it. "Next to the Surveyor himself, UTM is probably the most important tool we have - we must have a reliable thickness measurement," he says. "We have seen cases of UTM companies faking reports, issuing one to shipowner and another to the class societies. The owner gets the low value (the real picture) - we get a somewhat rosy picture. We have consequently had to cancel the authorisation of some UTM companies." DNV has a plan to improve targeting of possible substandard ships. It has an objective table of parameters, where ships earn "negative points" if they have bad class reports, port state control detentions, record of poor maintenance, record of poor coatings and steel thickness close to the limits, blacklisted flag, are old, have bad ISM audit results, have class suspensions or reports of questionable manager performance. DNV is being much tougher on ships which have flags which are on the Paris MoU "black list" - they are being followed up continuously. DNV is also strengthening its own resources and competence with an international trainee program. In 2003, DNV withdrew its class certificates on 29 ships; a further 64 vessels left DNV voluntarily in 2003 - "some of them are ships which would have been deleted if they had stayed with us," Mr Staalstrøm says. SUBHEAD The safety net DNV believes that the responsibility for safety at sea is shared between many different organisations; class alone cannot maintain safety. Also, interests directly or indirectly affecting maritime safety, like charterers, legislators and the public have to make sure that there is an incentive for quality shipping. You need oil companies to decide that they will only charter good quality tankers and port state control to ensure that substandard vessels cannot trade. Already oil companies like BP, Shell and Exxon Mobil are demanding that the condition assessment program (CAP), which rates vessels from 1 to 5, can only be conducted by a limited number of classification societies, including DNV. You still need however oil company vetting to look at the aspects of a vessel which class does not cover in their traditional scope of work. "What we're saying is that the class system in general works - and there is no good alternative to class," Mr Staalstrøm says. "But class has to adapt to the changing expectations." SUBHEAD Seaworthy Mr Staalstrøm is ready to meet expectations from outside the industry that class societies should help determine vessels as being "seaworthy," a subject which some other class societies seemed to shy away from. "Seaworthiness is a very broad topic," he says. "To have Class in order is an important element in ensuring seaworthiness. But seaworthiness - or whether a ship is fit for the intended sea voyage - is a much broader concept than classification." DNV has an innovative project to address one of the most tricky elements of a ship's seaworthiness - the competence of the crew. None of the other class societies are addressing this - but DNV has a project "SeaSkills" (see below) to evaluate and certify the competence of seafarers. "SeaSkills is not really a class service," he says. "Its a consulting service which we are developing into a certification service." DNV is also preparing for certifying ships for the forthcoming ILO (International Labour Organisation) convention, checking e.g. the hours that seafarers work, the working conditions onboard and the accommodation. Jowever, DNV will refrain from involvement in seafarer's pay. SUBHEAD Common rules This current class society development project is to lay down common rules for the tanker scantlings (steel structrures). The so-called big three class societies - DNV, ABS and LR - are co-operating on what they believe is an acceptable minimum structural standard. Once these new requirements are in force, they will only class ships built to this standard of safety and robustness. Working together with the flag states of Greece and Bahamas, the classification societies within IACS have also made a proposal to IMO suggesting that the top tier of decisions about ship safety is made by the IMO and that IACS takes care of the technical requirements supporting these goals. IMO is suggested to look at safety, quality and functional objectives and define risk acceptance criteria. IACS will then make prescriptive rules, such as detailed technical requirements covering design, construction, operation, training, maintenance and inspection, while other industry bodies may focus on policies, management systems and best practices. To assist IMO's decision making, the societies are suggesting that IMO accepts that a tanker's acceptable life is defined as it being able to operate for 25 years in the harsh North Atlantic. "We propose that this will be the basis for designing a ship," says Mr Staalstrøm. "as to robustness, we think a tanker should be defined for 25 year operation and will base fatigue strength and corrosion margins on this." Mr Staalstrøm notes that DNV, ABS and LR between them have 65 % of the world tanker fleet and this will help them to gain support for the proposals. "With 65 per cent of the world fleet we should be able to convince the industry that we have the experience and credibility - we should be strong enough to convince the industry this is what we believe is the right thing to do for safety and environmental protection."