Page 15: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 2023)

The ? rst step is an audit that examines current procedures processes like data entry, reporting, or any other administrative and practices. This will help to ensure the highest level of work that may arise from updated policies. Investing in automa- safety and compliance standards throughout your organiza- tion tools like these may help departmental leadership get up to tion by conducting internal reviews to determine the legiti- speed faster and adhere to new guidance more effectively.

macy and effectiveness of your organization’s existing SMS. 5. Pursue continual improvement and optimization.

This involves a review of your manual’s governance, manage- Safety management is a continual process. As risks and ment of change, and review and approval processes for align- threats change, so too do the controls needed to address them. ment with applicable regulatory guidance. Leadership should conduct regular assessments of compli- 2. Identify opportunities for improvement. ance, address corrective and preventive actions, engage in

Using the insights gained from the audit and their extensive root cause analyses (RCAs), and adjust their Quality Manage- experience in building safer operational models, companies ment Systems (QMSs) as needed to meet evolving operational can identify compliance gaps, benchmark performance against requirements. They should also be sure to update training and industry standards, and opportunities for other improvements cultural initiatives to re? ect any changes that may arise.

that can help reduce incidents and costs, enhance productivity and ef? ciency, improve reputation, and build a strong safety Safety and beyond culture that helps maintain stakeholders’ con? dence. A robust SMS not only enhances transparency and stake-

You can use this as a guide to ensure that your new SMS holder communication, but also allows you to better optimize framework both aligns with current International Organiza- your operations and improve your bottom line – all while ad- tion for Standardization (ISO) standards and includes addi- hering to local and federal regulations.

tional measures that help to protect your assets. In the long term, an effective and ef? cient SMS system will 3. Develop and/or update standard operational help create a strong corporate culture which better supports procedures (SOPs) and checklists scaling strategies in a safer environment and reduces the risk

You can now begin updating existing operational documen- of systematic failures, ultimately setting the company up for tation and identifying areas for supporting checklists within success from a business and ? nancial perspective.

each SOP. It may also be valuable to conduct working ses- SMS helps organizations achieve these objectives while sions with various internal stakeholders to inform further SOP maintaining compliance with evolving local and federal stan- and checklist updates to ensure compliance with all internal dards so their ? eets—whether comprising ferries, leisure policies and regulations. This is imperative for promoting ships, freight trains, towing or any other type of vessel—stay standardization across all internal documents, which will ease safe and compliant.

the overall implementation process.

The Author 4. Gain approval and implement ef? ciencies to

Grotsky drive widespread adoption.

As Vice President, Engineering at ABS Consulting,

Once you’ve developed a functional and actionable SMS, you

Steve leads our Global Engineering team across mul- can begin to roll-out the new SMS throughout the enterprise and tiple sectors including Offshore and Marine. The team specializes in complex CAPEX and OPEX engineer- attain buy-in from various business areas. It may also be help- ing projects that support the risk management needs ful to explore technological supports that streamline outlined of our clients serving the global critical infrastructure.

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