ON COURSE ISSUE PREVENTING IT TROUBLE ON BOARD ECDIS REGULATIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS FIVE QUESTIONS Captain Pär Brandholm

Transcription

1 ON COURSE ISSUE PREVENTING IT TROUBLE ON BOARD ECDIS REGULATIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS FIVE QUESTIONS Captain Pär Brandholm

2 CONTENTS FIVE QUESTIONS 3 EDITORIAL Dear Readers PREVENTING IT TROUBLE ON BOARD 4-5 ECDIS REGULATIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS 6-7 New carriage requirements for handheld-radios 7 First-Time Fix higher than ever! 7 Raytheon Anschuetz do Brasil has moved 8 International research: MTCAS 8 Besides rock-solid sensors and the crew s navigational knowledge, software is becoming more important on the bridge. A typical example is ECDIS, which has developed fast in the past few years. Now new regulations have gone into force with implications for all ships carrying ECDIS. We take a look ahead, and we also discuss the future of ECDIS among other places in our Five Questions section. Of course, software needs well trained personnel and proper maintenance we give some recommendations on how to ensure IT performance onboard. Enjoy reading! AND IT RUNS AND RUNS Recently, our Greek Sales and Service Partner Aegean Electronics attended a gyro sphere replacement service aboard a superyacht in Greece. As they were told on site, the gyro was still performing well, but as the yacht was intended to enter into a long term charter they wanted to update the most critical sensors and systems on board. When the technicians stepped aboard and began changing the gyro sphere, they wondered at the numbers and dates. In fact, the old gyro sphere was still the first and original gyro sphere, which had been delivered and installed with the Standard 22 aboard the yacht in March Even if Standard 22 gyro spheres reach a comparatively long average lifetime of five years, ten years sounds possibly record-breaking. At the least replacing a gyro sphere after such a long life is a remarkable event and a proof of the Standard 22 quality. Thank you, Aegean, for sharing this story with us! NEW TYPE APPROVALS FOR ECDIS AND CAM The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) have published new versions of some of their ECDIS Standards. As a consequence, current users will have to upgrade their ECDIS to be compliant with the latest standards and ECDIS carriage requirements read more on page 6. Raytheon Anschütz just finished type approval of the ECDIS Software according to these standards. New and existing customers can receive a cost-effective update / upgrade. Raytheon Anschütz offers two ECDIS models. SYNAPSIS ECDIS is an advanced ECDIS, offering a wide functional range and enhanced integration capabilities with other bridge systems. ECDIS 24 was designed for the special needs of a retrofit. ECDIS 24 comes as a complete, professional ECDIS package, combining cost-efficient hardware with the advanced functionality of our well-proven ECDIS software. At the same time, Raytheon Anschütz has received the type approval for a new 12 touch panel PC as central alarm management HMI (CAM-HMI) to meet NAUT-OSV requirements for CAM. More information within the next weeks! 2

3 FIVE QUESTIONS At regular intervals ON COURSE introduces people in our branch who have to do with navigation, the sea or shipping, on board and on land. This time: Capt. Pär Brandholm, 55 years old. Environmental and Nautical Manager at Laurin Maritime. What was your occupational history so far? I started at sea when I was 17 years old. I worked as Deck Boy, Ordinary Seaman, Able Bodied Seaman until I had finished Navigation School and become an officer; then I was 24 years old. I then continued as Navigation Officer for some years and then became Chief Officer, in which position I continued until I was 30. I became Master for the first time in 1990 and until 2011 worked as Master on our tankers (Chemical and Product Tankers of 47,000 DWT). In 2011 I got a shore position as Environmental & Nautical Manager and worked from our Houston office a couple of years to end up in Gothenburg, Sweden where I hold the same position still. I have been working at Laurin Maritime for more than 29 years. What fascinates you about your current job? I have a very flexible and interesting job where amongst many other tasks I am responsible for the vessel s environmental and nautical performance. In our company the management is somewhat different compared to a normal shipping company as we give the masters and chief engineers onboard the vessels a great deal more responsibility. They act as part of the management of the ships in a model we call Shipboard Management. So the daily interaction with the ships to continuously achieve operational excellence is very interesting and the model of how we manage our ships together fascinates me every day. What do you see as the challenges in your current function? The main challenge in shipping today is to be able to keep up with legislation and customers requirements with excellence. In tanker shipping we are continuously monitored by the Oil Majors as they perform extensive inspections onboard each of our vessels at least 3-5 times per year. We perform bench marking studies to know where we stand and our company is amongst the ones with the highest performance in the market. In order to always be in the forefront we dedicate a lot of resources to always being compliant, inter alia by actively participating in industry organizations to ensure that our ships always are considered well managed and by fulfilling the requirements sufficiently and well in advance of new and existing regulations coming into force. Talking about ECDIS: What is your opinion about ECDIS with regard to new regulations and developments so far? To enhance navigational safety and finally achieve situational a- wareness on the bridge, the correct understanding of how ECDIS is supposed to be used is of utmost importance today. Unfortunately some of the Oil Majors performing vetting inspections onboard vessels with ECDIS do not have the correct knowledge nor the correct attitude when it comes to how to interpret correct use of ECDIS. The new IHO standard will definitely enhance how ECDIS will present charts; this is good and fully supported. However, today there are too few requirements of how Safety Contour and Safety Depth shall be interpreted and used. I am sitting in two different industry organization work groups that are working hard on getting a uniform and accepted interpretation of how to safely use and set Safety Contour and Safety Depth. The outcome of this work will be finalized during 2016 and it will hopefully set a standard to enhance navigational safety when using ECDIS. What would the future ECDIS look like in your perfect world? Due to the before mentioned issues with low acceptance and knowledge of how ECDIS should be used, the requirement already in force to have and use ECDIS is unfortunately not working as intended. So I hope that in the very near future the full capabilities of having ECDIS will make navigation as easy and safe as intended by requiring ECDIS. Today officers in tankers are forced to use ECDIS in a very limited and complex way that does not enhance situational awareness at all, just to comply with some Oil Majors obsolete requirements. So my future in a perfect world would be the acceptance of the full capabilities of correctly using ECDIS to enhance situational awareness and thereby improve overall navigational safety. Laurin Maritime 3

4 PREVENTING IT TROUBLE ON BOARD Shipowners and captains are increasingly complaining about trouble with software on board. What are the reasons and how can we get the problems under control? Ship bridges are increasingly filled up with electronics: Various instruments display the ship s position, warn about risks of grounding and collisions, provide a plentitude of data. Many of the new features bring great improvement for safety and efficiency. The fast development of the past years brought three new risks, though: The first risk is over-reliance. Too many navigators take for granted that the displayed information is correct; they only seldom double check or verify otherwise. There is evidence that some recent accidents happened just because the ship had modern systems. The second risk is lack of harmonization : Bridge navigation equipment is often poorly integrated and hardly harmonized. Some ships have five computer displays from different makers! Each has many functions, plenty of menus, wide choices to configure the displays, select sensors and operation modes. Not all watch officers are familiar with all features. The third risk is lack of training. IMO, shipowners and manufacturers recognize that training concepts have to be developed along with each new technology. Besides the Generic Training, every user should get type specific training for the devices he is actually using. Type specific training is presently required by most flag states, but only for ECDIS! Not yet for other important items like Radar, track control and INS. Interschalt maritime systems AG Lack of training may lead to wrong operation. This will not damage the equipment, but it can result in a situation where the equipment is badly configured or de-adjusted. The result is that the captain believes the equipment is defective and the ship owner gets complaints on his desk. 4

5 Equipment makers and shipowners have recognized that SW maintenance is important to ensure performance of the IT on board. Consequently, the maker association CIRM and the shipowner association BIMCO jointly worked out a new Guideline for SW Maintenance which describes, step by step, what shipowners, equipment makers and service providers should do in order to ensure IT performance on board. Raytheon Anschütz was part of the expert team which worked out these guidelines. Most important result: All parties should ensure that on-board systems get proper preventive maintenance including regular tests and SW-updating, all carried out by an authorized and well trained service company which knows each contracted ship and can provide professional support. For land-based companies this is the standard almost everywhere - why not on ships? The next risk is just around the corner: To find a skilled and factory trained service engineer who really is able to identify problems and clean up the bridge system. Many companies provide technical services, but only a few are fully qualified and authorized by the equipment makers. It happens that ships are serviced by a less capable freelance technician who is not really familiar with the maker s latest SW versions. Whatever he does on board can make things even worse; it can cause many costly follow-up services. Why can t we fix it on board ourselves? is a frequently asked question. Ship owners would love to repair a ship bridge the same way as they fix an outdated smartphone App: just a quick download of the new version. No service engineers, no costs. This is hardly possible for a ship s bridge system. Because a faultfree function is much more relevant for the safety of the vessel than those of a smartphone. After installing the update, the new version has to be verified according to the specific ship s data and to the technical system environment of the ship. This needs a skilled and factory -trained specialist. What if the updated fails and the vessel can t sail? Manufacturers can only accept responsibility for the performance and grant warranty if they have control over this work. Would the pilot of a big commercial airplane ever install and configure a software update for the cockpit instruments by himself? During the waiting time at the airport? Or even under way during a flight? Never. This is always done by qualified ground personnel of authorized service companies. Why should the safety requirements be inferior for IMO ships? It is a legal requirement that manufacturers must assure and testify that every delivered navigation product is compliant with the relevant IMO and IEC performance standards. The great majority of navigation makers can also prove that they have high level quality assurance systems in place, including software quality. At the time of the first installation, the quality is reasonably assured. But what happens after delivery? Andreas Lentfer Raytheon Anschütz GmbH 6 STEPS TO REDUCE IT TROUBLE ON BOARD 1. Assure proper training to ensure the crew can operate the equipment safely 2. Make sure the navigation officer regularly carries out routine checks, on operator level 3. Make sure all installed equipment including HW and SW updates have type approval certificates 4. Make sure that proper maintenance and repair service is available for the relevant sea area. Only select service companies which are authorized by the equipment manufacturers 5. Make sure that technicians are trained on the equipment and that they use the manufacturers original tools, spares and SW 6. Order preventive maintenance and performance test by service technicians on a regular basis. 5

6 NEW ECDIS REGULATIONS NEED ATTENTION! Since introduction of Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS) in the 90 s and the mandatory ECDIS carriage requirements for vessels engaged in international voyages, starting in July 2012 most vessels are now fitted with an ECDIS. During this time, technology has evolved, and a number of shortcomings and safety critical issues have been identified by the users and authorities. Based on these findings, timely coordinated updates of the IEC Test Standards and the IHO Standards for chart presentation were published in August Usually, equipment on a vessel is accepted based on the certificate on the date of installation, but two IMO requirements overruled this for the ECDIS. MSC.232(82) and SOLAS V/27 clearly state that the chart information displayed on ECDIS shall be up to date based on official charts and conform to IHO Standards. So by 1st September 2017 all users must have updated their existing ECDIS to be in compliance with the above mentioned Standards. Raytheon Anschütz just finished type approval of the ECDIS Software according to the latest standards and will provide an upgrade to all new and existing customers starting now and in time before 1st of September, Support will be provided at any major port by the Raytheon Anschütz service network, with more than 200 service stations worldwide. ECDIS update depends on type of equipment Raytheon Anschütz is committed to sustainability for customers. Even equipment introduced 10 years ago will allow an ECDIS SW upgrade, thus customers will not need to invest into already existing hardware equipment. This also takes into account that the update of the IEC and IHO ECDIS Standards takes place in a difficult time for ship owners. If the system on board consists of type NGxxx equipment (NSC M processor) or older, a hardware upgrade will be necessary; any newer system, either type , type , type or type , is ready for Raytheon Anschütz ECDIS SW update. Raytheon Anschütz and the worldwide sales agents will work out a cost effective and future safe upgrade path for customers. Please visit the Raytheon Anschütz website for contact details: The new Raytheon Anschütz ECDIS Software includes also several product improvements such as support of Temporary and Preliminary (T&P) Notices to Mariners (NMs) with chart updates, improved alert management to reduce distraction of the user, automatic highlighting of hazardous objects in the searchlight area, a hover over function to give users instant quick help, improved route function to indicate hazards in the planned route before route check and many others. All improvements serve to reduce workload to the users, improve navigational safety and make EC- DIS more effective to use. 6

7 Customers already running our integrated bridge system will not only benefit by the above mentioned ECDIS improvements. The SW upgrade to the Synapsis integrated bridge system generation will bring them on the level of the highest demanding IMO Performance Standards and IEC Test Standards regarding Integrated Navigation System (INS), including an intelligent sensor management, selecting, combining, processing and evaluating sensor data into a Consistent Common Reference System (CCRS) a bridge wide ARPA / AIS target management an alarm management compliant to the new IMO Performance Standard MSC.302(87) and an easy to use bridge system status monitoring display, reducing workload to the mariner, improving navigational safety and making the system ready for the upcoming e-navigation era. What is the future of ECDIS? Raytheon Anschütz is an associated partner in the e-navigation initiative Sea Traffic Management, co-financed by the European Union and led by the Swedish Maritime Administration. The project aims at the continuous improvement and development of efficient, safe and environmentally friendly maritime transport, based on services to share maritime information between service providers and users. Raytheon Anschütz customers will benefit from this project in additional bridge navigation and ECDIS functionalities, providing continuous monitoring and adjustment of voyage plans in order to run the vessels in the most operationally optimized, cost efficient, safe and environmentally sustainable way and to provide a basis for collaboration between the vessels and the ports to increase predictability and reduce road times by sharing maritime information. Exchange of intended route sections via existing VHF communication channels will increase safety in congested areas and increase situational awareness before COLREG situations occur. Raytheon Anschütz and the ECDIS are ready to evolve into the Maritime Industry 4.0, embracing newest technologies and creating additional value for customers. NEW CARRIAGE REQUIREMENTS FOR HANDHELD-RADIOS Amendments to SOLAS regulation II-2/10 on firefighting, which entered into force on 1 July 2014, require a minimum of two twoway portable radiotelephone apparatus for each fire party to be carried for fire fighters communication. The apparatus shall be of an explosion-proof type or intrinsically safe. Ships constructed before 1 July 2014 shall comply with the above requirements not later than the first survey after 1 July Please contact Raytheon Anschütz or our sales agents for additional information or to request a quotation: FIRST-TIME FIX HIGHER THAN EVER! What is of highest important in technical customer service? Being able to fix a problem when a Master asks for help. Providing efficient customer service with high transparency of work status, budget control, predictability with regard to service time and service quality, no delays, and last but not least, no need for a second try. Thus, offering valuable technical support means good coordination, well-educated technicians and a world-spanning network of certified service stations and spare part depots. Raytheon Anschütz strives to offer first-in-class technical service, coordinated and monitored through our service hubs in Singapore, Panama, Bremerhaven and Kiel. We monitor the service performance through the so-called First- Time Fix Rate (FTF). The FTF indicates whether a technician was able to fix a problem when first attending aboard or whether a second try was necessary. In 2015, Raytheon Anschütz reached an overall, worldwide FTF of 90% - which represents a new all-time high. We see this as a confirmation to continue our way of investing into an even better service organization to further offer customers the best possible support whenever they need it. 7

8 INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH: MTCAS Raytheon Anschütz, together with other leading maritime companies, is looking ahead and participating in various research projects to further improve navigation technologies and safety at sea. One of the latest projects is MTCAS ( Maritime Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System ) which aims to increase safety in sea traffic by developing a maritime electronic collision avoidance system similar to those being used in air traffic. In the focus stand maneuver prediction, alerting and decision support. More about MTCAS as well as further current and past research projects is now available on the Raytheon Anschütz homepage under: RAYTHEON ANSCHUETZ DO BRASIL HAS MOVED Raytheon Anschuetz do Brasil Sistemas Maritimos LTDA has moved to a new office location. The new address is: Avenida João Cabral de Melo Neto 850, Bloco 3, Sala 305 Barra da Tijuca, CEP , Brasil The company provides shipyards and shipowners in Brazil with local know-how in maritime system integration and navigation system support. More information: UPCOMING TRADE SHOWS In 2016 Raytheon Anschütz in many cases together with our worldwide sales partners plans to exhibit at various trade shows around the world. We look forward to meeting you there! Posidonia Athens, June SMM Hamburg, September Monaco Yacht Show September 28-October 01 Fort Lauderdale Int. Boat Show November New Orleans Work Boat Show December Inmex Guangzhou December All trade shows can also be found on our website: CUSTOMER BOX This issue has focused on ECDIS regulations and ECDIS developments. Do you have any comments on our articles or suggestions for future articles? Would you like to answer our Five Questions? Or do you have a story or pictures to share with us about our products in use at sea which would be in accordance with the idea of this magazine? Please send us an oncourse@raykiel.com In order to stay updated on product news and important service information, please visit our website: Raytheon Anschütz is a leading supplier of navigation systems and integrated bridge systems for all kinds of vessels. The systems are served by a global network of own subsidiaries in Shanghai, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Panama, Portsmouth / UK and San Diego, and a worldspanning network of highly qualified service stations. ABOUT RAYTHEON ANSCHÜTZ GMBH Raytheon Anschütz is a leading supplier of navigation systems and integrated bridge systems for all kinds of vessels. The systems are served by a global network of own subsidiaries in Shanghai, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Panama, Portsmouth / UK and San Diego, and a world-spanning network of highly qualified service stations. IMPRINT "On Course" is distributed at irregular intervalls by Raytheon Anschütz GmbH; Marketing Communications Zeyestraße 16-24; D Kiel, Germany; Phone: +49 (0) ; oncourse@raykiel.com; Internet: Misprints and errors excepted. All Information subject to correction. All rights reserved. Pictures Laurin Maritime, Interschalt maritime systems AG 2016 Raytheon Anschütz GmbH 8