Keeping safety at the forefront with RightShip

In eleven years, RightShip has vetted over 200,000 vessels and undertaken more than 14,500 physical vessel inspections.As a result, customers have been able to identify in advance the 25% of the global fleet that are the substandard operators who account for approximately 70% of total casualties.

RightShip’s comprehensive online Ship Vetting Information System (SVISTM) uses up-to-the- minute data about 71,000 ships and 120,000+ companies to deliver instant risk evaluations. It analyses over 50 risk factors with proven links to casualties and detentions, covering vessel building and maintenance, ownership and management, crewing, flag, class, Port State Control, inspections and many other aspects of history and performance.

Thousands of users across more than 210 organizations including shippers, ship owners, ship managers, port authorities, terminals, agents, insurers and maritime finance organizations rely on SVISTM 24/7 to reduce their marine risk. Around 75% of RightShip’s business comes from the dry bulk sector. Customers screen vessels using standard or customized criteria, review risk-related data and track vessel or fleet performance. In 2012, RightShip processed 33,504 decisions across 2.66 billion tonnes of commodity and removed 1,158 vessels from customer supply chains.

In recent years, RightShip developed the Existing Vessel Design Index (EVDITM), to provide customers with a systematic and transparent framework for measuring the energy efficiency of the existing fleet. The EVDITM provides a theoretical estimate of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by any nominated ship, per tonne nautical mile travelled, based on the engine and vessel design characteristics when the ship is built.

It is based on the same principles as the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC)’s Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI), but is designed to be applied to the existing world fleet.

RightShip has eight customers, who between them transport 475 million tonnes of cargo per annum, who currently factor the environmental rating into their vessel selection process.This represents around 10,000 vessel movements a year and nearly 10% of global non- containerized trade. Feedback from the early adopters suggests this framework has not only helped to reduce shipping costs, but has also gone a long way to publicly demonstrate their commitment towards corporate social responsibility.

PORT REPRESENTATION

The international shipping fleet are in varying conditions and RightShip’s SVISTM protects substandard vessels from entering international terminals. RightShip’s user community unite to combat the relocation of substandard vessels. Once a vessel has loaded at a terminal that subscribes to RightShip, feedback from the terminal staff is recorded against the vessel for future reference. In 2012, around 4,700+ terminal reports were submitted to the SVISTM database.

In 2012, RightShip began facilitating terminal questionnaires to support customers seeking to improve the safety processes of visiting ships, improve efficiency and reduce the risk of delays. Administered by the terminal, the questionnaire process is fully integrated with existing systems and processes thus reducing the administrative process for ship owners.

MAIN CHALLENGES

RightShip constantly seeks to improve the existing service offering by refining the functionality of the Ship Vetting Information System and making improvements to the risk rating. A key challenge is to ensure that any change that is made to SVIS, including incremental refinements, is a value- add. Integrating new data sources that address new and emerging risk factors is another challenge for the business.

RightShip is working on improving the predictive ability of the risk rating algorithm to quantify the residual impact of casualty and PSC detention close out.