IN 1328 – DP station keeping reporting

DP station keeping reporting has further evolved during 2016. The experience and knowledge of the IMCA DP Focused Workgroup has enabled the production of a new electronic DP station keeping event form, introduction of a periodic DP event bulletin and the inclusion of a gap analysis tool to complement the annual review of received DP reports.

IMCA has a long tradition (more than 20 years) of providing a confidential and secure platform for DP station keeping reporting and sharing these events with industry via annual analysis reports. The changes made are designed to encourage participation and provide the DP industry with prompt and unbiased feedback on lessons learnt from DP station keeping events. The requirement for anonymity of the vessel, company and client is considered to be of primary importance and will continue to be honoured.

A new IMCA DP station keeping event report form has recently been introduced. It maintains the clarity of layout of the original form and assists the user to input the information which is required by companies and IMCA to fully assess the causes and lessons to be learnt from a DP station keeping event. It is anticipated that removing the word ‘incident’ and replacing it with ‘event’ will encourage more general reporting of DP events which, in turn, will promote more learning opportunities than that from only major DP incidents. Consultation and the experience of IMCA members has led to three clear reporting categories namely: DP incident, DP undesired event and DP observation.

The form is available on the IMCA website as an interactive pdf that can be downloaded, renamed and saved for forwarding to the DP vessel owner and IMCA or it can be printed and completed by hand if required.

The most obvious change to the form is to the title, but other improvements are summarised here: 

• Name changed to DP station keeping event report, removing ‘incident.’
• Three distinct reporting categories:
  • DP incident – a major system failure, environmental or human factor which has resulted in loss of DP capability.
  • DP undesired event – A system failure, environmental or human factor which has caused a loss of redundancy and/or compromised DP capability.
  • DP observation – An event that has not resulted in a loss of redundancy or compromised DP operational capability but is still deemed worthy of sharing.
• Utilisation of drop-down boxes allows for commonality of collected information.
• Clear instruction on when and how to complete the form.

In reviewing the report form, IMCA was conscious that the form should be capable of being used by companies for their own internal reporting needs and not just for reporting to IMCA. It is encouraging to note that since the form was made available in July at least two GCo members of IMCA have incorporated the form into their safety management system.

To encourage participation and ensure benefit was gained from DP station keeping reporting it was seen as essential that industry was provided with prompt feedback to current DP station keeping events. The IMCA DP event bulletin provides this by including anonymous factual event trees of current events reported to IMCA.

The IMCA DP Focused Workgroup, as subject matter experts, provide comment and suggestions on the anonymous events to share with the DP industry. The first IMCA DP event bulletin was published on the IMCA website at the beginning of May, the second in July and the third published in September. The group intends to provide three to four bulletins per year.

The annual review of DP station keeping reports will continue to be produced using the information submitted by the originator of the report. The yearly review will be distributed in electronic format only and will be accompanied with a spreadsheet itemising the initiating event, main and secondary cause of each reported incident, undesired event and observation.

 The spreadsheet enables vessels to easily compare actual events that have occurred with the situation on board their vessel, use the information as part of their operational risk assessments and ask the question “Could this happen on my vessel?