The ISM Code – CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

This study was carried out in order to present an updated investigation of the Swedish shipping industry’s compliance to “Reports and analysis of non-conformities, accidents and hazardous occurrences” in accordance to section 9 in the ISM Code and to compare the results of this research with the underlying intentions of the concept of continuous improvement, that is one of the indicators of the presence of a good Safety Culture. This was done in order to be able to compare the Swedish conditions to the international status as described in earlier researches in this work and by use of the INSJÖ reporting system as a mall, investigate if this research was in line with the rest of the Swedish shipping industry. The result was also analyzed in relation to Dr W. Heinrich’s Accident Distribution Model to achieve an understanding of the result’s plausibility in this research. The data collection for this research was carried out by mean of interviews with Masters, Designated Persons and top level Managers in five different Swedish shipping companies, representing a good spread of different kind of: ownership; size of fleet; numbers of employees; shipping activities. A literature revue was also carried out The result of the study was that there was reluctance to report accidents, near misses and non-conformities of which the two later is of importance to prevent accidents in according to the concept of continuous improvement as described in this research. It was also found that the number of reported near misses and non-conformities were not in proportion to the number of accidents comparing with the Accident Distribution Model by Heinrich. This result was also comparable with the INSJÖ reporting system as well as the earlier researches described in this study.