The maritime industry is moving towards common rules. "From now on class societies will compete more on service delivery, competence, and additional services tailored for the client," says Tor Svensen, COO of DNV Maritime.
The Joint Tanker Project is nearing completion, and the rule development work is well on schedule for the publication of the new common rule set for structural design of tankers in July 2005.
"We have received a formidable amount of constructive and valuable feedback," says Tor Svensen, COO of DNV Maritime. In fact, more than 3000 comments of both technical and formal nature have come in, and the project team is continuously assessing and responding to the feedback.
"Our ability to deliver a first class new rule standard that will be received positively by all stakeholders is now our highest priority in the final stages of the project," says Tor Svensen. He is convinced that the Joint Tanker Project will set a standard that will have an enduring and positive impact on the industry, and in the long term raise the quality of the world fleet.
Common structural rule standard
Quality, transparency, robustness and consistency have been key words for the project. Although today's individual rules ensure safe ships, the project has been designed to provide a new common rule set, with no competition among the class societies on the basic structural safety standard.
"Our stakeholders demanded more focus on quality and robustness, and we in DNV together with our collaboration partners, decided to use our accumulated knowledge in order to produce a new rule standard that meets industry expectations," says Tor Svensen. One of the results is that class processes will be more transparent and there will no longer be any competition between class societies on the main structural scantlings of the ship. In addition, there will be full consistency between the standards for newbuildings and the standards used for in-service assessment of the structure. As an example, the actual in-service corrosion margins will be known and clearly stated already at the newbuilding stage. All the participants agree that these new elements will in the long term help to raise the quality bar substantially.
Rules relating to structural strength are the main topic in the Joint Tanker Project. Although this is an important part of the classification of a ship, the remaining aspects of class will still be left to the individual class societies, ensuring continued competition between them. From now on competition will be on quality, service delivery, competence, and additional class notations tailored for the clients.
"DNV will still invest in research and development projects to sharpen our competitive edge. We recognise that our most important competitive advantage is the expertise of our staff," says Tor Svensen.
Consistent application
The three class societies DNV, LR and ABS have worked together closely and they all have agreed upon a common text for the new rule set. However, it has been asked how the industry can be certain that the rules will be applied consistently. This concern was a very important aspect of the project from the beginning. Co-ordinated training, harmonized software and common monitoring routines are issues the project team has prioritised to ensure consistency.
"We must strive to ensure that we, as a team of class societies, are able to act fast enough to continuously improve the rules based on industry input. If this turns out to be a slow process, the rules simply aren't as sharp as they should be," says Tor Svensen, emphasising that a common rule secretariat has been established to assess the experience gained and prepare for future updating of the rules.
IACS has initiated a similar project: the Joint Bulker Project for the development of common rules for bulk carriers. IACS has announced that the long-term goal is to achieve one common rule set both for tankers and bulkers.
Class still responsible
Many ask what implications introduction of a common rule set will have on the classification societies' responsibility with regard to ship classification.
"As a classification society, we are still responsible for the rules and how they are complied with throughout the newbuilding process. This is the responsibility for the individual societies and we cannot hide behind a common standard. DNV will introduce the new rules as their own and follow the normal process of rule approval, consulting their technical committees. DNV will still be fully responsible for all the certificates issued. The introduction of common rules does not imply a fragmentation of responsibility," says Tor Svensen.
In fact, he is convinced that harmonisation is a growing trend and that the Joint Tanker Project has been a significant step to take in the process to raise tanker quality, strengthen the role of class, and at strengthen DNV's own position in the marketplace.