The Tanker Management and Self Assessment (TMSA) programme, first introduced in 2004, provides ship operators with a means to improve and measure their own management systems. The programme encourages ship operators to assess their safety management systems against listed performance indicators and best practices. The results of these assessments can then be used to develop an improvement plan, using the stages of attainment described in the programme, to achieve safety and environmental excellence. These days, it is the primary measure used by petro-chemical customers when selecting vessels to charter.
With the start of the first ship technically managed, the MT Atlantis Andaman, OCIMF's TMSA programme was adapted in June 2009 to assess Armona Denizcilik's management system. In January 2011, Captain Chris Allport, an external auditor from Hudson Marine, joined us in our offices for a period of four days to independently measure our management systems' status compared to the levels of the TMSA requirements and to report on our gaps. The visit was considered by our team to be a full success, as it objectively identified several gaps in our management system, which, when closed, will significantly improve our system and controls.
In the process, four TMSA stage 2 gaps were identified, which will be addressed immediately to complete Armona's overall TMSA status at this level and recognise our score of 2.4 (on a scale of 4) commercially, leading to more business opportunities. Some of the gaps to be addressed over the coming months will provide Armona with a more dynamic system of management, using Key Performance Indicators to regularly measure whether we meet our safety and environmental targets. This will enable us to become proactive and take early action to prevent declining trends from becoming a problem or resulting in an incident or accident.
We will start comparing our performance with a cross-section of similar tanker operators to benchmark ourselves against the industry. Additionally, we will encourage you to identify our Best Practices, which will be shared not only with our colleagues across the Armona fleet but also with the maritime industry. In this way, we aim to achieve our goals of consistent performance, delivering safety and environmental excellence.
