“Successful, on board, Safety Management, will always be driven by responsible and knowledgeable seafarers with effective support from ashore. This support includes Safety Management Systems which should be taking advantage of the available technology.”
Clive Harrison, Director
Captain’s and experienced crew members will have used numerous SMS systems throughout their careers. The solutions applied to the SMS, since the move away from hard copies received via snail mail, has included documents hosted by a public cloud service such as Dropbox or Google Drive to others that have continued to adopt a paper based system where on a monthly basis the documents and work permits are scanned and uploaded in a single batch. The on board administrative burden is, of course, multiplied for DPAs and their safety and compliance teams by the number of vessels they are supporting. This creates a large volume of work to process in as short a time as possible.
We at Riela Yachts put technology at the forefront to allow us the ability to provide our clients with the tools they require to implement and maintain a safe working environment, as efficiently as possible, whilst ensuring duty of care and regulatory requirements at all levels and as required. Our ‘electronic Safety Management System’ (eSMS) has provided a purely electronic SMS system that is secured via an onboard 1U server (for local speed) and replication ashore on our own, privately owned and secured server stack in the Isle of Man. This is proving to be an effective system, garnering many positive comments from all users which stands up to close scrutiny from Flag Auditors. Additionally, it offers unparalleled security when compared to other providers or public cloud services.
Using a well-established company for our underlying document management and business process software, we have created an SMS which provides an electronic library for all reference materials, including but not limited to:
- Fleet and Yacht Manuals
- A collection of reporting forms for critical Fleet Wide activities (e.g. arrival and departure, and accident reports)
- Yacht specific activities (e.g. departmental familiarisations, task-related checklists)
The electronic forms are designed to provide an almost live communication with the DPA/Safety & Compliance Team, which is adding, where required, enhanced safety oversight to activities such as Permits to Work. This additional oversight does not encroach on the onboard management but allows the ability to review and approve submissions in near real-time from multiple vessels, providing, as required, almost instant feedback.
Our clients can also benefit from this system by uploading non-safety management related documentation, forms and checklists, which can be accessed and used in the same manner. All this information synchronises seamlessly and securely to each vessel, ensuring crews have the most updated information whilst retaining detailed auditable records. This is an efficient way to disseminate the information and procedures required by the code. It has also eliminated the printing, shipping and storage of manuals to vessels around the world.
If you would like a private demonstration of our eSMS please contact our Technical Officer, Christian Moore via christian@riela-yachts.com. Alternatively, there are a number of short demonstration videos available on our YouTube channel.
