Practical Experiences in Upgrading and Standardising the Safety and Environmental System (SEMS) for the RN Marine Power and Propulsion Systems Division

Under UK law, all employers have a duty of care to their employees, the general public and the wider environment. For the Ministry of Defence (MoD), this includes an obligation to manage the safety risks associated with military systems and their operation. To that end, considerable effort has been expended by MoD to establish Safety and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS), which would ensure that acceptable and as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) levels of risk were justified for their platforms, systems and equipment. The Defence Equipment & Support - Marine Power & Propulsion Systems (MPPS) division is one such equipment integrated project team (IPT) that had a substantial number of safety cases and associated hazard logs developed over several years, that aimed to demonstrate how acceptable and ALARP levels of safety had been achieved and how these levels would be maintained. This paper describes the problems encountered when rationalizing and standardising the SEMS, the processes developed to deal with the associated challenges and the outcomes and lessons learnt as a result of implementing this paradigm shift. Amongst the many lessons learnt from this iterative continuous improvement method was, that smart key performance indicators (KPIs) could only be derived once integration of seemingly raw data into an intelligent and relevant information management system was completed.