New Standards and New Manning at Adsteam

This international standard is only mandatory for ships over 500grt, but the staff and crews at Adsteam Medway applied for voluntary compliance as part of the company’s drive towards continuous business improvement and the highest standards of health & safety.

The audit encompassed environmental and Health & Safety standards throughout the company’s Medway operation and includes crew and staff appreciation of their specific areas of responsibility and roles both at sea and ashore.

Commenting on the success of the audit, Adsteam’s Chief Executive Stephen Eastwood said: ‘This is an excellent result by local Operations Manager David Brown and his team at Sheerness, which will encourage other UK ports to undertake the same rigorous process. As a company, Adsteam is totally committed to ensuring the safe operation of tugs at all times and welcomes voluntary initiatives such as these which can only help to improve our business processes and standards.’

David Brown, who heads Adsteam’s Medway team, believes that the new standard will complement systems put in place in 1996 as part of the company’s drive to meet the ISO9001 quality management standard. He added: ‘Much of the work in developing ISM on the Medway was carried out by the crews, reflecting their significant input into our working practices and procedures’. Additional resources and advice were provided by Heather Grant, the Quality Manager of Adsteam Humber, and her team.

Adsteam (UK) Ltd has also reached a national agreement with the Transport and General Workers Union to implement three person crewing. The agreement follows six-months’ of intensive consultation, safety assessments and negotiation.

John Moller, Managing Director of the Australian parent group Adsteam Marine said, ‘We have worked closely with the union to achieve our aim of three person crewing, and we are pleased the result has been achieved. Following an earlier agreement with the Transport and General Workers Union and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency the company has also complied with the new Maritime Working Time Directive that was introduced into UK law in July.’ The agreement covers the redundancy terms for those employees who will be leaving the company, as well as new terms for remaining employees covering the financial years 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Mr Moller said, ‘This is a significant step forward for Adsteam and its employees as it recovers some of the losses in productivity experienced over the last few years, against the background of a competitive market environment and legislative changes. The implementation of three person crewing will begin immediately and will be progressively implemented with completion by March 2005.’