Feature: Gaining momentum in DP
Read Seaways online at http://www.nautinst.org/seaways August 2019 | Seaways | 23
(OCIMF) White Paper on DP assurance is met, and that DP trials
practitioners and offi ce-based personnel maintain and continually
develop knowledge and competence. Continuous professional
development (CPD) is built into the scheme via a revalidation
requirement.
There are several benefi ts to becoming an accredited DP Trials
and Assurance Practitioner or Company DP Authority. Successful
applicants will receive a certifi cate to recognise their achievement for
display purposes. They can state they are ‘IMCA accredited’ and will
receive a dated photo ID card. IMCA maintains a list of successful
applicants, who are now listed as ‘IMCA accredited’, and those with
expired accreditation.
DP vessel operators, their seagoing staff and their clients will benefi t
from the knowledge that the person responsible for providing assurance
during DP trials, and those managing DP operations in their own
organisations, are accredited to a recognised level.
The steps to accreditation
Leading up to the offi cial launch of the scheme on 1 May, we made it
clear that before applying, applicants should satisfy themselves that they
met certain requirements. They were advised to check qualifi cations,
certifi cation, experience and knowledge for their chosen category of
application to avoid the risk of a failed application and associated costs.
Those requirements are clearly set out in the application pack and the
suite of supporting documentation, all of which can be found at
http://www.imca-int.com/divisions/marine/personnel/dp-accreditation
All applications are reviewed by IMCA’s Secretariat. Once all the
criteria are successfully met, a computer-based examination can be
scheduled. These exams are held around the world in convenient
locations. The fi rst ones were in Aberdeen, London and Singapore,
and future examinations will take place in:
Aberdeen (10 September)
London 8 and 9 August; 10 September
Rio de Janeiro 15 October
Trondheim 31 October
Singapore 17 September
Houston 10 September
New Orleans 3 December.
Dates for France, South Africa and Australia will be announced
shortly.
The examination itself is delivered electronically and consists of
eight modules in a multiple-choice format. The modules are:
O Code of conduct
O IMCA guidance documents
O DP control systems
O DP power systems
O Thrusters and thruster control systems
O DP documentation
O IMCA M 190
O Scenario-based experience.
There are two sets of questions on scenario-based experience
depending on the category the examinee is seeking to achieve. All
questions in each module are randomised and generated from a large
database of questions.
The IMCA document Guidance for Developing and Conducting DP
Annual Trials Programmes IMCA M 190 has been revised since the
scheme was introduced. The revision was overseen by IMCA’s Marine
DP Committee with three main objectives:
- Ensuring compliance with IMO MSC.1/Circ.1580 Guidelines for
vessels and units with dynamic positioning systems. - Providing clarity regarding the requirements for incremental testing
within an annual DP trials programme. - Introducing the IMCA DP Practitioner Accreditation Scheme.
IMCA’s DP reporting scheme
It would be highly unusual for me not to make any mention of the
important role IMCA’s DP reporting scheme plays in sharing ‘lessons
learned’ – think of your own Nautical Institute Mariners Alerting &
Reporting Scheme (MARS) and you will fi nd similarities to our aims.
Last year 147 reports were received – a 50% increase on previous
years. We constantly encourage companies to participate in the
scheme, established long ago by the DP Vessel Owners Association.
Participation in the scheme helps DP operators learn from DP
station-keeping events, with selected reports reproduced anonymously
in the quarterly DP event bulletin. The scheme is not designed to
track failure and most reports contain information where the system
of redundancy has prevailed. Importantly, participation enables
experiences to be shared through updated guidance, quarterly DP
station keeping event bulletins, case studies and an annual review of
DP station-keeping reports. It is the DP professionals on the vessel who
can contribute most to the accurate reporting of DP station-keeping
events and who will benefi t most from the lessons learned.
While I was in Singapore last month to speak at a DP conference I
took time out to visit an industry training centre, and I was encouraged
to see the IMCA DP event bulletin sitting alongside NI’s publication
The Navigator.
http://www.imca-int.comg
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