DCD Marine Cape Town strenghtens safety and quality measures

One of South Africa’s leading shipyards, DCD Marine Cape Town, is proving once again that safety and quality are the mainstay of its business. As part of its SHEQ (Safety, Health, Environment and Quality) programme, the company holds regular ‘safety days’, during which its project team members, as well as key sub-contractors and their employees, take time out to focus on all safety-related issues and processes.

The underlying purpose of these Safety Days is to reinforce one of DCD Marine Cape Town’s stated company values: ‘One team, one goal’. Gerry Klos, General Manager of DCD Marine Cape Town, explains: “When it comes to providing a world-class turnkey project management service to our clients, it is critical that every member of the project team is aligned. It is only then that we can achieve our goal which is an incident-free,100% on-time delivery on all planned shipyard projects.”

DCD Marine Cape Town, part of the DCD Marine Cluster, provides ship repair as well as oil and gas upstream services to a variety of international and local shipping clients, both from its facilities in Cape Town and offshore.

With a well-established reputation as a safe and reliable shipyard, the company complies with global SHEQ regulations and standards and is fully certified with, among others, the Lloyds ISO 9001:2008 quality management system.

The company’s most recent safety days were held for the Transocean Marianas and Sedco 702 projects, as well as for the Western Trident project.

“We have organised safety days over the past few years for major projects and they have proven to be very effective,” says Abdullah Elmie, Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) manager at DCD Marine Cape Town. “They provide an invaluable opportunity for all parties to interact prior to the commencement of the project, in order to discuss safe methods for mission-critical activities.”

The safety days feature various activities including risk assessment exercises, and presentations which provide an overview of the project with specific reference to safety policies, procedures and standards to be enforced for the duration of the project.

“We also present the Bridging Document/ HSE Plan, which sets out how HSE will be managed throughout the project,” adds Elmie. “This empowers the project team leadership with the knowledge of exactly how safety will be managed on the project. The challenge is ensuring that same knowledge filters down successfully to all levels of the team. This is particularly important for people joining the team at a later stage, which is why we have HSE inductions and ongoing safety awareness sessions. Yes, incidents may still occur, but it is the way in which we manage them that can mitigate the severity thereof.”

Project observation systems (called ‘Start/Stop’) and group hazard and risk assessment (HIRA) sessions also form a key part of safety days, notes Elmie.

“The aim is for each individual working on the rig, whether he or she is a labourer or a rig manager, to take ownership and be proactive. By making use of the systems we have in place, such as ‘Start/Stop’, individual team members can work together to ensure safe working practices at all times.”

“For our clients, safety and quality are critical factors in determining our competency and capacity to execute a project safely and on time. Our safety days serve to reinforce our proven international HSE track record, strengthen our client relationships, and ensure that we continue to provide a world-class service as one team, with one goal,” Klos concludes.

[mappress]

Press Release, May 01, 2014