Page 18: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2020)

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Marine Casualties

Don’t Miss the Near Misses

We all know that maritime can be perfectly safe, as long as we all know it is very dangerous.

Knowing something is dangerous may not be as easy to ? gure as we like to think.

y company has been involved in Maritime I have long advocated that vessel crews should be faced with

Safety Management System development only having to deal with these two main operational compo- and evaluation since its earliest days, and nents, and that the QESTH components function within just we were a signi? cant player in the strug- one management system.

M gle to get those systems to work. I prefer Today, decades later, there are still too many SMS (and of- to think of SMS as a somewhat larger in- ten additional “E” and “T” systems) out there that are noth- tegrated system that also includes training, ing but lip service. On the other hand, it is a delight to in- environmental and some other components. In the of? ce we spect shipboard SMS’s that are actually working programs. call it QESTH; Quality, Environmental, Safety, Training and A working program is a program where there are many non-

Health (Human resources). These are the operational com- conformances, because a ship that has no non-conformances ponents that traditional ship owners considered to be a nui- thinks it is perfect, and is simply setting itself up for disaster. sance, and were ignored because they were imposed on them A ship that continues to log non conformances is involved in by the public. As such they could be called “For the Public self-examination, and self-examination is the proper path to

Systems”. Today the best way to look at QESTH is to re- long term survival.

gard them as strategic pro? t makers, while direct operational The very best systems are those that manage to record near issues such as fuel consumption, budgeting, ? nancing, ? eet misses. That rarely happens in standalone Safety Manage- investment, routing and chartering, are tactical pro? t makers. ment Systems; with safety issues crews adjust and will hap- 18 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • February 2020

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