England soccer team could learn a thing or two from Lloyd’s Register

Five years ago, Lloyd’s Register was ranked eighth in the European port-state control (PSC) league of ‘recognised organisations’ but fast forward to 2013 and the classification society had jumped into the top spot. So how did they manage the turnaround?

I loved the front cover of the satirical British magazine Private Eye on the eve of the World Cup. It showed the English football team walking down the steps of a jet at an airport in Brazil. The pilot has his head out of the cockpit and the editors have inserted a bubble with the words: “Shall I just keep the engines running?”

Indeed, after two quick defeats and a draw, England were indeed back home before they even got a swim off Copacabana beach, never mind a shot at the Fifa World Cup Trophy.

There will soon be a huge inquest into how the team failed to reach even the knockout stages for the first time in over half a century.

Perhaps Steven Gerrard and his team should get on the tube line from Wembley and go down to Fenchchurch Street via Aldgate station.

At Number 71, they will find Lloyd’s Register (LR), which generally has a reputation for being a top team, and underlined the fact by coming first in the list of “recognised organisations” (ROs) in the rankings of the European port-state control (PSC) league for 2013.

This list is based on how well the vessels overseen by the classification society fare in inspections and detentions over a rolling three-year period.

What makes the latest LR result of interest to others is that it was only five years ago that the society was languishing in eighth place. Getting to the top required having the best safety record despite nearly 11,500 PSC inspections, more than double its nearest rival, American Bureau of Shipping (ABS).

Eighth position was not awful but hardly the kind of performance you would expect from a senior member of blue-chip industry body the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS).

Indeed Tom Boardley, LR’s marine director, was the chairman of IACS between 2012 and 2013.

So what went wrong in the past and how did management put it right, England football manager Roy Hodgson might ask? Boardley says the first step was to accept that you are not where you want to be, and that it is up to you to rectify the situation.

“We recognised the detention record was a badge of shame that reflected badly on the organisation as a whole... We also realised there were pockets of the organisation not working as they should do,” he explained.

“Although we were trying to have consistent standards, we were not as rigorous as we should have been.

“And we had to accept that this could not be fixed in one year, not least because you are effectively carrying two years of bad data.”

Boardley is referring to the fact that PSC inspectors are partly basing their decision to inspect a ship on whether the owner or class society has a poor track record. This makes sense in overall safety terms for the industry and its personnel but makes it harder for the likes of LR to improve its performance at a time when rivals could be moving ahead yet again.

As many as 50 vessels were considered “at risk” of being detained and LR set about increasing inspections to bi-monthly, in some cases.

Boardley says LR began its work by quickly introducing a new fleet quality-management programme.

This was enforced with unannounced and random inspections. They did not always go down well, he admits.

“We did have some saying they were not going to have this but generally they accepted the argument that there is a cost to detentions because they disrupt voyages and charters,” he said.

“Obviously, if we were too draconian then we would chase owners away [from LR]. This would not be good for us but not good for them, either, if they just went elsewhere.”

Some did leave, says Boardley, “but not many”. Equally, no LR staff had to walk the plank but the odd one was taken off direct inspections.

Boardley says LR also realised that it had been too trusting and had allowed some “frivolous” detentions to take place.

“We began to challenge some detentions where we felt information had been misread. We realised others [rivals] had been doing this all along. We had been missing a trick.”

LR recognises that it might now have won the equivalent of the league cup but the challenge now is to stay there. Roy Hodgson may be watching.

  Source: Tradewinds