ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the rules within the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Safety Codes and provides information about rapid changes in the reliability, availability, maintainability and safety assessments in the marine industry. Reliability of a ship component is a function of its material, design, and manufacturing quality, age, and elapsed time since maintained and operating environment. Maintainability of equipment is a function of its design quality, availability of parts and labour and ability to repair the equipment within the given mission scenario. New initiatives from the IMO, such as the ISO and Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping codes and introduction of formal safety assessment guidelines, are changing the management of safety in ship operations. The safety assessment process provides vessel equipment performance information in a suitable format that allows shore-side and shipboard maintenance management personnel to better target their available resources.
