SIRE & ISM Code: Changing Behaviour of Crew and Management

The ISM code was adopted after several tragic ship accidents like the 1994 sinking of the Estonia. It requires tankers and vessels of 500gt and above to install and implement a Safety Management System (SMS), both ashore and afloat.

Despite class compliance, insurance companies and charter parties also compel the safety code. Regardless, some tanker owners treat the code as a form filling and check list exercise or an administrative burden. Instead, tanker owners, operators and managers should realize the necessity of compliance as the tankers’ man employment is directly related to their “oil major approval.”

History shows that major incidents have always resulted in financial misbalance and reputation loss.

SIRE – Ship Inspection Report Programme

To protect the industry, the Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF) launched the Ship Inspection Report Program (SIRE) in 1994 to improve the quality and safety standards of the vessels. SIRE inspectors check for tanker conditions and ISM compliance alike. However, in the shipping company management exists misunderstandings and worries about how to address some issues appropriately:

How to become ISM compliant.
Unease about creating documents which may result in SIRE VIQ ‘observations’.
Legal advices proposing to eliminate traits (like paper work) which may lead to conviction or disclosure obligations.

ISM Issues: Fear & Prejudice

These misunderstandings may result in underperformance in important ISM sections and therefore, increased physical and legal risks.

Indeed, it is difficult to obtain an overview of tanker ISM issues because a standard system for intelligence gathering is missing. That is also why industry accident investigation lags behind other industries such as aviation. In the paper “Use and Abuse of Ship Casualty Data,” Jack Devanney explored how being in fear of legal prejudice is main reason for accident investigation shortcomings. Hence, many problems are not reported to the officers and vessel owners and managers may not wish to be informed in writing about minor shipboard issues (NC report).

Such behavior is quite dangerous and was tested in a New York arbitration case where a vessel owned a SMS certificate for couple of years but could not provide a single filled NC report! Ultimately, the arbitrators decided in favor of the opposing party.

ISM Compliance Survey

In 2014, David Corkish conducted (for his dissertation) a survey about ISM compliance that was published by the Norwegian P&I Club Skuld. Some findings of his survey were:

Some ‘cultures actively avoid embarrassment of managers and crew.
Company statements about compliance were not followed practice.
Basic cause of many incidents are management practices.
ISM Code Section 12 asks for audits, but they are not carried out.
Less than 50% of respondents replied they had interest to ISM’s philosophy andpractice.
75% claimed the paperwork was excessive and burdensome.
IT support was inadequate to alleviate administrative burden.
70% felt that an insufficient NC system was in place.
Less than 50% thought their NC findings were taken seriously.
ISM compliance relies too much on paperwork.

Wrong State of Mind

From 1998-2008, the co-author of Skuld’s loss prevention bulletin, John Dudley, examined 400-500 OCIMF SIRE VIQ reports. He observed the following:

Only an occasional statement would be raised as a nonconformity.
Only one company raised a NC review for every observation.
Only in one case a NC report was fully completed (including management of change, follow through and sign off).

Dudley noticed that the some managers seemed to concerned to file NC reports, which would prove a functioning SMS, but would not trigger an entrance into the VIC report…
This is the wrong state of mind: following the standard procedure of a full NC report will strongly decrease the likelihood of a dramatic incident; not filling NC reports or filing suspicious reports usually results in detrimental court action.

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