Partners Aim to Help Shipowners Meet Hazardous Materials Regulations

Maritime and offshore specialist IT firm SRO Solutions is launching a new partnership with international inspection agency SGS and maritime digitization specialist NautilusLog to help shipowners meet this year’s Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM) deadline, and manage ongoing IHM maintenance.

Owners of European-flagged vessels of 500 GT and over have until December 31, 2020 to create an IHM. In order to comply with the new EU-Ship Recycling Regulation, the presence of materials such as leaded paint and asbestos must be noted, along with its location on the ship and the volumes involved. An estimated 56,000 ships around the world will be covered by the new rules, including vessels from non-EU countries that call at EU ports.

Manchester-based SRO Solutions is teamed up with SGS and NautilusLog to simplify the next key step of the IHM process, supporting shipowners that use tech giant IBM’s Maximo asset management platform.

Joe Davies, a consultant at SRO, said its new ‘plug-and-play’ solution eases the burden of compliance on shipowners running Maximo by providing an automated, cost-effective way of connecting to NautilusLog, ensuring a complete and simple IHM maintenance solution. NautilusLog produces an App which supports crew at sea and their onshore management by tracking ships and automatically generating events and tasks.

Following an initial IHM survey, vessels must ensure they do not take any further banned materials on board, and that any permitted hazardous materials are correctly logged. Under the partnership agreement, SRO’s solution integrates all future procurement data into NautilusLog almost instantaneously. It allows SGS to review all purchase orders to identify banned substances and flag up anything that will contravene the regulations. If there is a change to the vessel, the inventory will update automatically, ensuring continued compliance and peace of mind for the business. An IHM covers the entire life cycle of the vessel, from construction, throughout its active service life, until dismantling.

Davies said, “This new partnership between SRO Solutions, SGS and NautilusLog provides shipowners with a fast and efficient IHM maintenance process that seamlessly integrates with their current Maximo procurement platform.

“As far as the client is concerned this all happens in the background. Costs are also reduced as there is no need for a new procurement system in addition to Maximo. The integration software is already built so we can get a company’s Maximo platform talking to NautilusLog in a matter of days. With the deadline for compliance approaching fast, saving a client weeks of work at this stage could well prove crucial.”

Liam Phelan from NautilusLog, said, “We are excited about this partnership as it allows even more clients to simplify the automatization of their IHM maintenance process and easily become compliant, removing unnecessary time, effort and cost on their side.”

Wouter Hagens, IHM expert at SGS, said, “Automation and expertise were at the heart of this collaboration, and we succeeded. Thanks to the years of expertise of SGS, NautilusLog's user-friendly digital platform and SRO's asset management solutions, we can now provide the maritime sector with optimum support in the maintenance of IHM.”