Humans are (still) key to managing the risks of digitalisation

Digitalisation and decarbonisation will be the defining issues for shipping over the next quarter of a century. But the scale of the change they create promises a third issue: how to manage the transformation on such a scale without compromising safety.

New vessel designs, new procedures and technologies and completely new fuels are changes that would normally evolve over decades with regulation leading the way. The speed of digital development and the timescale of decarbonisation upends that approach, with the industry moving ahead of the rules, using acceptance of novel concepts and verification of equivalence by class and flag.

While the industry’s safety record has continued to improve over time. there can be no complacency while ships are still going aground or losing cargo. More numerous, though far less reported are the bumps and scrapes, near misses and close calls that are the stuff of day to day operations.

Digital transformation calls for greater integration of systems, while the transformation to carbon-neutral shipping requires collaboration and increased transparency. Both require not just regulation, but a culture of continuous learning.

Clearly concerned that the industry may be moving ahead of the ability of statutory bodies and regulators to do their jobs, class society DNV GL warned recently that the industry may not fully capable of recognizing and managing the associated safety risks.

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