The Challenge
The scope of engineering support required while a vessel is in-service is wide-ranging and depends on several factors, including the type of vessel, its location and the number of contracted organisations. The ships vary in size and complexity from Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats up to 40,000-tonne ocean-going tankers, maintained by several different contractors who carry out maintenance at ports based both around the UK and overseas.
Each contractor has unique processes and procedures, which can vary greatly, and it was essential that the differences were thoroughly understood. The global nature of the contract also required a large pool of competent overseers who were able to travel for extended periods away from the UK and act independently on their own initiative.
Our Solution
To meet client challenges, our solution was to provide a highly competent team of Maritime Overseers, managed through our UK office with a dedicated single point of contact for our client. This comprehensive overview meant that we could swiftly scale support up and down as required to support our client’s changing programme requirements.
All Safeguard Engineering overseers are highly skilled and hold extensive experience in maritime engineering. The team are located strategically across the UK, allowing them to efficiently support specific areas/yards with minimal deployment time, travel and subsistence costs. This high level of mobility ensured that they were able to quickly represent the interests of our client and provide the level of assurance required.
Client Benefits
Through this service, our client benefited from a single point of contact to coordinate all aspects of the overseers. The customer enjoyed greater peace of mind with a Maritime Overseer on-site, overseeing vessels through the build process, into service, and during in-service maintenance periods. This ensured that maintenance was completed on schedule and to the required standard while also allowing swift and efficient reactions to emergent work. Our Overseers could quickly assess proposed tasks on-site and advise on their suitability and cost, reducing the risk of costly schedule slips and improving vessel availability to operational commanders.
As a privately owned company, we operate free from external pressures and allegiances, ensuring the integrity of our assurance and providing impartial oversight of contractor activities. The Overseers guarantee engineering and safety standards and provide early indications of schedule risks. Where additional expertise is required, we can reach back into our expert team for dedicated subject matter experts.
Further benefits of our Maritime Overseeing service:
- Full-time presence in Portsmouth and surrounding areas to oversee Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats operated by the MoD undergoing planned maintenance, equipment upgrades and defect repairs. As well as ensuring work packages are delivered consistently to the MoD’s exacting standards, assurance is provided to the end-customer through observing individual craft performance through rigorous sea trial assessments in the Solent.
- We also have a full-time presence in Cammell-Laird dockyard in Liverpool, conducting upkeep work package support for 40,000 tonne Fort Class and Tide Class vessels of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service. Support is provided from the initial writing of the technical specification documents through to the assessment and acceptance of the work delivered by the dockyard engineering teams and sub-contractors.
- Internationally, our team has provided support to customer vessels in Norway, Gibraltar and Singapore. This has included oversight of local contractors undertaking maintenance periods to ensure work is completed to MoD statutory standards, using correctly sourced spares and delivered at a price considered as value for the taxpayer money. Emerging issues were assessed quickly, solutions agreed, required materials negotiated within the budget and procured locally to achieve resolution.
- We’ve provided seasonal support for the Royal Navy’s P2000 Patrol Craft annual maintenance periods in Holyhead, Lymington, Gosport and South Shields, ensuring consistent and cost-effective delivery of work packages to the correct engineering and safety standards. This culminates in the oversight of rigorous harbour and sea acceptance trials to ensure vessels are ready to complete another year of Fleet operations.
- In the acquisition field, our team provide on-site overseeing support to the new high-speed patrol craft for the UK Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) and Gibraltar Defence Police (GDP), the Maritime Police Launch under construction in Birkenhead. They provide essential quality assurance activities and offer problem-solving advice as required, based on years of sea-going experience. Being the impartial, on-site ‘eyes and ears’ for the customer, the overseers can spot emergent issues at an early stage of development and, in doing so, avoid unnecessary schedule impacts.
