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After a career at the sea, why not work as a Marine Consultant ?
The page of the ISM Code N°39
 
Foreword

The ISM code was born in the 90s and can therefore be considered as a recent maritime management tool. Inspired by the norm ISO 9002 at the time, it was specifically intended for management of shipping companies and their ships. Realized in general terms, the code was prepared to be widely applied without a plethoric literary application like ISO standards.
The first guidelines which could help us, were the ISF / ICS guidelines in1993 when the flag authorities tried somehow to make their troops aware of a new way of control for many of us. The classification societies were immediately interested because there was a business opportunity concerning advice and the certification on behalf of the flag. Good idea, because many "Flag Authorities" today delegate their full ISM flag certification to them !
But what about consultancy?

Ethically unable to provide bothadvice and certification at the same time, members of IACS (International Association of Classification Societies) tried by different schemes to ensure either through a "sister company" system in charge of the consultancy and the class itself in charge of certification for example, but indeed this did not go downwellat all at IMO!
As a result, a need for consultants to help companies and crews to apply the ISM code became necessary. I admit it today, it was a classification society (and not the worst) that introduced me at the time to this new job.
Having tried all types of transport or maritime operations over the years (including passenger transport or offshore -oil- activities), I find myself tacking stockof a career which will be soon coming to an end. Not easy to predict who will be our successors, but I think I have done the necessary for that, even if the volume of work is finally not that important!
Such a report begins with the job itself: what is an ISM consultant?
With the code as a reference and a great experience of 22 years anyway, I can try today to summarize this job in all modesty.
Yes, it's all about:
Oui il s'agit bien de:
  1. Auditing ie measuring discrepancies between the standarding reference (ISM code) and the practices of the company. The ISM consultants therefore propose an internal audit carried out in the form of a conformity and / or operational diagnosis.
NB. If at the beginning we start almost from ablank page including for the old companies, today, except for new companies, we are called in to update a safety management system (SMS) that has already been certified as compliant but which functions more or less and sometimes drifts at the discretion of successive managers. So we sometimes have to go back to basics and take the code, chapter after chapter, to ensure that compliance still exists!
  1. Expertise, , the company calls us because we are "experts" ie with « experience » in the field audited. ISM experience nowadays means practicing the code in almost all areas. Not easy indeed, but a very solid knowledge of the code and its requirements should help to get started!
  2. Propose : In your contract there is a diagnosis of conformity of the application of ISM procedures but also a component to propose« corrective actions ». Sometimes we propose a global solution: Since it is often during the establishment of a safety management system and / or security that we intervene, we propose an original SMS that has proved itself and we adapt it to the company based on its initial safety culture in the type of marine activities concerned.
  3. Training : initial and continuous training is increasingly seen as the key to safety culture; we therefore integrate it systematically in our propositions. It was so obvious that it was "forgotten" at the birth of the ISM Code! When I say "forgotten" I mean "shunted" because not made obligatory!
    William O'NEIL, IMO's former Secretary General "Emeritus" remained so traumatized by this that he reminded us in his order - Please avoid the same oversight - in the prologue when we were working on the text of the ISPS code.

  4. ISM and ISPS training is therefore in our expertise.

    NB When the amendments to STCW 95 came into force, it became apparent that special training (Rule V) also required some expertise and the training centers naturally turned to us, particularly for the training of personnel (other than seafarers) of passenger ships.
    Today, where there is a screaming needespecially after the results of the investigation into the sinking of the COSTA CONCORDIA, we are on the market with solid references, and above all, a reputation for credibility that not all training centers have despite their respectable flag approval.
 
Aban Abraham en transformation à SINGAPOUR

Formation à l'école nationale de CALLAO (PEROU)
    It's amazing, these special training courses are oddly the unpopular ones in a profession that nevertheless still prefers specialization to polyvalency ... again a paradox : even well-known maritime reviews often forget them in their annual "special training" issue!

By the way, we are specialists in internal auditing.

But what about the external audit? Do not hide it ... behind the external audit, there is still a form of scam! The principle of auditing was invented by the ISO standard, you are compliant with the standard or you are not, but please findthe solution by yourself to be conform! This philosophy of external compliance auditing allows auditors who are not familiar with the job at all, to conduct an external audit that is often … traumatic for the auditee because there is a tremendous need for the necessary certification (ISM and ISPS). Finally no need for a university diploma to follow a checklist like they do. The results are often a discussion between carpet traders on the number and level of nonconformities that often boils down to inaccuracies in a text or procedure (in our jargon this is also called "misplaced comma syndrome »).
This does not help the shipping company despite the pre-audit formal statements meeting, but just a question of results!
In the marine industry, the ISM or ISPS external auditors are trained as ISO auditors and the result is just as uncertain!
Seafarers, who are very practical people, consider these external audits as end-of-year exams to be passed ... we pass or we don’t pass ... so they treat these audits with suspicion .... Howdoes this « land lubber » think he can teach me my job ?
To solve this problem, we therefore "invented" the business of the ISM consultant which, even if he comes from outside the company, can carry out an internal audit of compliance with the reference to the ISM code and the joint IMO guidelines (like an external auditor) but in addition he will propose corrective actions resulting from his own experience as well as improvement actions adapted to the Company. In addition, for us the consultant can not ignore the transmission of knowledge so we conduct our "consultancy" within the framework of a continuous training of the auditees according to their responsibilities in safety at the company level and on board its ships.
To conclude, our contracts are roughly 50% audit and recommendations, and 50 °% training of staff, designated persons and managers.

NB :In the case of training the CEO, we must not speak about training! but information or coaching ... it's the same thing but it's more politically correct!
 
Finally in this job, very little practiced finally, the term diagnosis is not often used, we offer both the diagnosis and the treatment ... more like a visit to the "ISM doctor" !

C'est en fait très simple : un auditeur spécialisé vient de l'extérieur effectuer un audit interne que vous enregistrerez d'ailleurs comme audit interne compagnie (c'est comme vous le savez, une obligation : §12 du code ISM et § 9.8/16.13 du code ISPS).

Yes the key is there: whether it is in safety, in security, in environmental practices or in quality (customer satisfaction) ... our actions of consultant are to initiate and put in place the tools of evolution of an internal culture within the company ... that the staff can even transpose to their personal life!
Yes, all of this is ideal ... the reality is not quite so cosy! Always « too expensive repeat »the managers!
Indeed the everyday battle on the funds allocated to safety within the company falls also hard on the shoulders of the consultant! In this business there are unfortunately still "gangsters" who operate poor ships under exotic flags with crews with limited skills ... but obviously havingat the same time all the necessary certificates from the biggest certification companies or flags that are clearly on the IMO white list and still pass from one port to another without too much trouble! Except that one day when the troubles accumulate (one too much!) when the ship is retained at berth to the despair of the Port Captain. ; the shipowner can not be found or does not care (his ship is already a wreck!) and … the flag Administration is never sued ! then what can we do?
INNOVATION

INNOVATIONThe last indispensable quality for the ISM consultant is innovation. High level experts in a specific field, we innovate constantly. In safety management and training there are certainly many opportunities for improvement but some are real innovations.
Largely to our credit, here are the improvements of the application of the ISM code with their dates of creation and which are in use all over the world today: :
  • Original SMS for a shipping company and easily adaptable to the Offshore industry (1996)
  • Logical increase of the requirements of the code one by one (since 2000)
  • Determining procedure of "critical equipment and systems" (2000) used with our agreement by the OCIMF / training working group
  • Procedure : "feedback" and Continuous Improvement (1997)
  • Integrated System of Contingency Plans (1997)
  • Integration in the SMS of the ship’s operation procedure in degraded mode (2000)
  • Fatigue measurementin the marine survey (2000) NB: following our participation in an IMO study
  • Combined Safety and Security drills and exercises Process (2003)
  • Adaptation of Passenger Vessel Evacuation Signalisation process to other Vessels such as the offshore industry and quickly set up by TRANSOCEAN one of the major offshore companies (2000)
  • Criteria for evaluation of a SMS (KPI) and the safety culture with a dashboard to follow up (2006improved in 2016)
  • Creation of 'an Integrated System E3S (Environment, Safety, Security and Customer Satisfaction 2005)
  • ISM and ISPS original training courses through the IMO TCP program: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Cameroon, Republic of Congo
 
Exercice de sécurité à ANTSIRANANA
  • Creation of an "ISM port" ® (IMO motivated): application of the ISM philosophy in a port
  • ISM / ISPS documentation greatly reduced thanks to the use of logigrams (2009)
  • 3 xISM level training courses for all personnel of shipping companies: from the CEO to the AB (DPA-Officers –internal auditors - Crew members awareness)
  • Training of experts and ISM consultant (since 2000 in France and especially in UK via the IIMS course - nearly 200 experts trained and certified in 15 years - recognized as a university degree)
  • Training of Maritime insurers and lawyers (2002 improved 2012)
  • Intelligent integration of ISM criteria into inspections of offshore internal associations (2005)
  • Simultaneous bilingual ISM and ISPS training courses in Eastern Europe (2012) on behalf the European Commission .
  • Original training courses for STCW V / 2§ 1 to 5 (in french and english)
  • Creation of an original PSO training course (Port Security Officer) in addition to other training and teaching in Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Georgia)
All these innovations are now well used in shipping companies or ports and we are proud of that.
En conclusion

The mandatory ISM certification was made to counter,or try to, the « bad » shipowners ... which was necessary ... but the rest of our industry is starting to understand that just average is no longer enough (sometimes they are under average!) ... the quality culture that begins with the respect of standards and regulations will eventually be the solution. The expert who audits, advises, trains and innovates is the key element for the future.
Today, our industry is beginning to consider that management and resulting audits form an entirety and therefore we need to integrate conventional inspections with audits carried out under the ISM and not to maintain periodic visits "apart" from the intermediate audits.

 
Audit interne à GUIRGULESTI (MOLDAVIE)
Cdt Bertrand APPERRY
AFCAN/AFEXMAR/IIMS Août 2017


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