Aaron Cooper (OCIMF): “SIRE 2.0 will provide a more holistic, all-encompassing assessment of the condition of a vessel and its crew” (source: OCIMF)
OCIMF programmes director Aaron Cooper explains how OCIMF’s new tanker inspection programme enhances safe operations and supports crew
Tanker crews will be familiar with OCIMF SIRE Inspectors that carry out inspections on the vessel and its crew. For the past 29 years the programme has served the industry well, governed over 180,000 inspection reports and become a crucial tool for industry in vetting vessel quality and safety. It is a comprehensive regime, with trained and accredited SIRE Inspectors conducting paper-based reports worldwide, which assess the safety and condition of a vessel against a Vessel Inspection Questionnaire (VIQ).
The programme has always evolved to meet significant developments in industry regulation, understandings of best practice and changing ways of working (both onboard and ashore). The SIRE Vessel Inspection Questionnaire (VIQ) is currently on its 7th iteration, (VIQ7).
As industry continues to evolve at speed, it is becoming increasingly challenging to update the VIQ and other documentation as paper-based processes to meet changing requirements and ongoing risks.
A digitalised regime
In 2018, the OCIMF membership agreed to digitalise the inspection process by moving to tablet-based inspections, offering industry a more intuitive and adaptable tool.
OCIMF is now finalising and testing the new regime, SIRE 2.0, which will provide a risk-based assessment programme capable of producing a more holistic, all-encompassing assessment of the condition of a vessel and its crew
The new tablet-based reporting method will result in several changes for Programme Participants and Inspectors. Ports and terminals will be encouraged to allow inspectors through their facilities with an intrinsically safe tablet device. Operators, meanwhile, will be required to provide information prior to the inspector’s arrival onboard, reducing pressure during the onboard inspection window.
“Paper questionnaires and clipboards carried by inspectors will be replaced with tablet devices”
Paper questionnaires and clipboards carried by inspectors will be replaced with tablet devices loaded with specially-developed software that can be used to conduct inspections in real time. Paper-format questionnaires will only be used under SIRE 2.0 as a contingency where a tablet cannot be used.
Perhaps most significantly, under SIRE 2.0 no two inspections will be the same. Although, all users will be able to view the SIRE 2.0 Question Library containing all questions that may be raised, the current static, standardised and paper-based VIQ, which requires ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses only, with negative observations reported in text, will have been replaced with a more dynamic assessment of risk. Vessel owners, operators, managers or crew will not know which questions will be included during their inspection.
Under SIRE 2.0, accredited SIRE Inspectors will complete a Compiled Vessel Inspection Questionnaire (CVIQ) using the tablet device. The CVIQ is compiled using SIRE 2.0 software which uses an algorithm to select questions from the SIRE 2.0 Question Library, based on the type of vessel, its outfitting and operational history to create a bespoke risk-based inspection questionnaire.
The expanded question set covers questions classed as: core (asked during every inspection and focused on risks that may directly lead to severe or catastrophic risk events); rotational (ad-hoc and focused on risks that may indirectly lead to severe or catastrophic risk events); conditional (unique to vessel, operator or ship type); and campaign (a target area of concern for OCIMF members).
As such, preparedness under SIRE 2.0 will require adherence, at all times, to all applicable regulations and best practice. This will, by extension, raise standards across the board. The result will be an inspection process that delivers insight to tangibly improve safety and allow vessel owners and operators to establish the root causes of risks.
The human factor
As well as being dynamic, under SIRE 2.0, observations are graded from ‘not as expected’ through to ‘exceeds expectation’. Free text responses and use of images (where permitted) can support the inspector’s observations, to give more explanation, evidence and clarity to what are often complex assessments. This provides important contexts for all parties involved and, for the first time, also recognises excellence. Crucially, most questions on the CVIQ require the inspector to provide responses based on hardware, processes, and human factors.
“Observations are graded from ‘not as expected’ through to ‘exceeds expectation’”
The focus on human factors is a significant change for industry. There is widespread recognition that the human element is a key risk as well as a key risk mitigator across all aspects of operations, yet it is not routinely assessed. By integrating human factors across the entire inspection process, SIRE 2.0 will significantly aid industry understanding of human factor issues and, we believe, improve support for crew.
As this is an area that is relatively new to both inspectors and crew, OCIMF has been delivering a programme of human factors training to inspectors within the SIRE 2.0 Inspector Transition Training Programme. Submitting companies, programme recipients and vessel operators are also being provided with familiarisation materials which include pre-recorded presentations that cover human factors, the layout and structure of the questions, and use of tablet devices, amongst other areas.
OCIMF and its membership recognise that moving to SIRE 2.0 represents a significant change for all users of the programme and effort will be required initially to adapt to new processes and procedures. But we are confident that the benefits will be long-lasting.
In SIRE 2.0, industry will have a vessel inspection programme that can adjust in line with the changing nature of risk and can be more readily enhanced as knowledge and awareness of managing these risks evolves. It will also be a programme that keeps pace with how we work today – more online than offline – and, crucially, will provide marine assurance data of a quality and depth that will undoubtedly improve safety across the board.
