This document is designed to assist the interfacing of the safety management systems (SMS) of installations and DP vessels. Interfacing is necessary for example when a DP vessel moves into the 500m safety zone of an installation irrespective of whether the DP vessel is itself classed as an installation. It could equally apply to diving operations carried out from a contractor owned DSV on an operator's subsea facilities, or an operator's service vessel working at a different operator's installation.

It is essential for safe offshore operations that when an installation and a DP vessel, with their individual safety management systems, are interfaced that consequential risks are identified and controlled. The degree of interfacing of the SMSs will be a function of the identified risks and may take the form of a new jointly agreed document, i.e. a bridging document, or of modified elements of the individual SMSs. It is desirable that the extent of change to each system is as small as practical to facilitate DP vessels working with different installations, any changes being driven by the identified risks. These guidelines set out what is generally regarded as good industry practice but operators and vessel owners may use different standards in a particular situation, where to do so would reduce or maintain an equivalent level of safety.