A ship equipment contains many items that could be defined as ‘critical’. Normally, criteria for choosing a critical equipment or operation lie as its potential to carry on to a hazardous situation. When trying to decide which equipment items are ‘critical’, consideration is given to human safety and pollution prevention.
Thus, a critical equipment or operation is this, the failure of which will lead to a potentially hazardous situation, resulting in injury, loss of life, damage to the marine environment or loss of property.
Real Life Incident
A general cargo vessel was carrying 750 tons of metal sheets to Klaipeda, Lithuania. During afternoon hours, when it was about 70 nautical miles from port, the vessel called to Klaipeda Port Co-ordination Centre for assistance, reporting a water ingress in the forepeak part. There was already about 60 cubic meters of water in the forepeak which was close to the critical limit.
A Lithuanian tug vessel assisted the vessel by shielding it on its way to Klaipeda port. On its way to the port, the crew on board were pumping out the water from the vessel. The vessel reached the port safely.
Water ingress in the forepeak was caused by a defect in the non-return-valves in the ventilation duct. Equipment was not identified as critical and no spares were available on board.
Recommendations
With respect to this incident, it is concluded that the following points are to be considered for critical equipment and systems:
- Fully risk acceded, contingencies planned for and operations restricted where appropriate
- Critical equipment and systems should be defined and identified within the safety management system and in the ships planned maintenance system
- There should be clear reporting requirements when critical systems alarms or equipment become defective or require planned or unplanned maintenance
- Equipment and technical systems whose sudden functional malfunction can lead to a hazardous situation should be identified and spares to be available for their functionality
- Test and performance data for all critical equipment or systems is considered to be important
- The company should aim for no incidents or out of service times that attributed to a failure in managing the maintenance of critical equipment or systems and associated alarms. When maintenance is to be performed, a full related risk assessment is required, including time estimation/worst case scenarios and back up procedures and contingencies
- Finally, there should be ensure that critical equipment and systems are treated as priority items in the fleet’s planned maintenance systems
SQE Marine has prepared a detailed checklist aiming to provide the necessary steps required, in case of critical equipment failure.
EMERGENCY PROCEDURES: Read in this series
Thanks once again for the interesting article.
Do you by any chance have an advice on which equipment and technical systems fall under the category of Critical as a rule of thumb.
Whilst the ISM code refers to “Equipment and technical systems whose sudden functional malfunction can lead to a hazardous situation should be identified and spares to be available for their functionality”, it may appreciated that the case is quite grey.
Your feedback on the above would be much appreciated.
Are we talking about carrying out Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) for items of shipboard equipment that are considered critical/components that form part of larger systems – such as power distribution, proplusion, etc?