Singapore: DNV today issued a certificate of compliance to NYK Shipmanagement for its competence management system, which is based on a set of Officer Competence Standards in compliance with specifications from the Society of International Gas Tankers and Terminal Operators (SIGTTO) and the Tanker Officer Training Standards (TOTS) from Intertanko.
The certification award means NYK Shipmanagement becomes the first ship manager in Asia to receive a classification society-endorsed competence management system. NYK Shipmanagement aims to deploy the system on all of its 24 tankers by the end of this year and then move on to its entire managed fleet of 104 ships.
The certification ceremony was officiated by DNV Maritime's Regional Manager Helge Kjeoy and Hemant Pathania, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of NYK Shipmanagement and took place in Singapore this morning.
"The implementation and certification of the competence management system represents a significant step in our efforts to enhance seafarer standards onboard our vessels," says Pathania. "We shall always strive to be innovative, also in these challenges times. We need to utilse this slack period to recruit, provide job-specific training based on effective competence gap analysis to prevent wastage of the training dollar."
He continues, "There is a lot of training going on in the industry in accordance with STCW, which is of generic and non-prescriptive nature. Our system is robust in terms of identification of NYKSM fleet specific competence standards and training systems developed over the company's long maritime history. These systems have now been embedded into a state of the art competence management system developed together with DNV to ultimately maintain focus on the effectiveness of training.
"I am confident that this work will help us use this recession period to recruit, train and retain high quality people so that we are well ahead of the pack when the economy recovers. We also hope that such competence management systems will - in due course - be accepted by the industry in lieu of the experience matrix now required by the industry," added Pathania.
The certificate was presented by Helge Kjeoy who thanked Pathania for choosing DNV and commented, "The certification represents the leadership values and focus on an effective competence management system that NYK Shipmanagement is committed to fulfil. The DNV auditor performed an extensive verification process of compliance toward the standard and found high levels of compliance and commitment throughout the organisation in Singapore. We would like to express our congratulations to NYK Shipmanagement for its unparalleled commitment in achieving notable organisational excellence."
Amit Ray, head of DNV Seakill Asia commented. "SeaSkill is DNV's contribution to making the maritime industry look for competence beyond compliance. Companies like NYK Shipmanagement are looking beyond satisfying minimum requirements and focusing on competence as a strategic tool. Typically an annual training budget for a company can be stated to the last dollar and cent but the difficult part of the equation is the effectiveness of training. NYK Shipmanagement and DNV have made an effort to address this challenge."
The certification comes at a time when human errors have been recognised by leading institutions as the key factor in maritime incidents. The Norwegian Maritime Directorate recently reported that 66% of all ship groundings were due to human error and the United States Coast Guard indicated that over 75% of all ship accidents were also due to human error.
"It is the people who make the difference between safety and danger in shipping," said Ray. "Recognising this issue, we will work with NYK Shipmanagement and others to improve seafarer competency levels." [14/10/09]
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