World’s First: LR Digital Type Approval to HHI

The world's largest shipbuilding company Hyundai Heavy Industries Co (HHI) has become the first to obtain a Lloyd’s Register (LR) approval for a digital component as it received green light to use the technology for its Integrated Smartship Solution (ISS).

According to LR, digital type approval delivers an assurance system to provide confidence in the market for the supply of digital components and offers all the benefits of traditional type approval; reassurance on supply chain quality and robustness within the marine environment. Digital type approval can apply to both components within information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems.

Type approval of HHI’s first line network security component confirms it complies with the latest LR type approval test specifications and the requirements specified in LR’s type approval system procedure for components that are part of digital systems onboard ships.

HHI’s first line network security component plays an important role as it establishes a barrier between controlled internal networks and untrusted outside networks. This helps to mitigate against information and operational vulnerabilities, as an increasing amount of data is stored, processed and transmitted by digital systems onboard ships.

HHI Senior Executive Vice President, Hyung-Kwan Kim, commented: “We are glad to receive this digital type approval certificate from LR for the first line network security component of our smart ship system, ISS. We will continue our efforts to lead the digitization of the marine and offshore industry in order to maximize the benefit for our customers with new technology, ensuring it is applied safely.”

Young-Doo Kim, LR’s North Asia Technical Support Office Manager said: “We have been working closely with HHI to ensure that the first line network security component of their smart ship solution meets our digital type approval requirements. We are very pleased to issue this digital type approval certificate to HHI and we believe this is the first step in moving towards digital ships consisting of approved digital components with safeguards in place to protect against cyber incidents.”