Designated Person Ashore (DPA)

The International Safety Management Code (ISM) was the catalyst for the creation of the Designated Person Ashore (DPA) defining the contact point between the shore management and the ship. This person should be responsible for monitoring not only the safe and efficient operation of a ship but also the organisation of safety audits, the reporting of deficiencies and the monitoring of corrective actions. But from the inception of a the role –created by the British following the 1987 capsizing of the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry outside Zeebrugge – has also prompted much discussion about how this person/function should fit into a maritime organisation.

The-role-of-a-DPA-White-Paper.pdf (iims.org.uk)

Health and safety, the cornerstones of a modern industry and the markers set in stone for maritime operations at every level. This is a new era for the maritime world and with increasing regulations bringing everyone into a unified way of working, it means greater attention to detail in these areas is essential for smooth operations. With this in mind, the role of caretaker or the person designated as the ‘keystone’ in these matters is of great importance. That person is the Designated Person Ashore (DPA) and the role is now even more important than ever.

ကျန်းမာရေးနှင့် ဘေးကင်းရေး၊ ခေတ်မီစက်မှုလုပ်ငန်းတစ်ခု၏ အခြေခံအုတ်မြစ်များနှင့် ရေကြောင်းသွားလာမှုဆိုင်ရာ အဆင့်တိုင်းအတွက် အခြေခံအုတ်မြစ်များတွင် ထည့်သွင်းထားသော အမှတ်အသားများ။ ဤသည်မှာ ရေကြောင်းလောကအတွက် ခေတ်သစ်တစ်ခုဖြစ်ပြီး စည်းကမ်းများ တိုးမြင့်လာခြင်းကြောင့် လူတိုင်းကို စည်းလုံးညီညွှတ်သော လုပ်ငန်းဆောင်တာများအဖြစ် ဆောင်ကြဉ်းလာသောကြောင့် ယင်းနယ်ပယ်များတွင် အသေးစိတ်အချက်အလက်များကို ပိုမိုအာရုံစိုက်ခြင်းသည် ချောမွေ့သောလုပ်ငန်းများအတွက် မရှိမဖြစ်လိုအပ်ပါသည်။ ဤအချက်ကို စိတ်ထဲတွင်ထားကာ ဤကိစ္စများတွင် Caretaker သို့မဟုတ် Keystone အဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ခံရသူ၏ အခန်းကဏ္ဍသည် အလွန်အရေးကြီးပါသည်။ ထိုပုဂ္ဂိုလ်သည် ashore (office) ရှိ သတ်မှတ်ထားသော ပုဂ္ဂိုလ် (DPA) ဖြစ်ပြီး ယခုအခါ အခန်းကဏ္ဍသည် ယခင်ကထက် ပို၍ပင် အရေးကြီးပါသည်။

The creation, management and support of a Designated Person Ashore are essential to not only comply with the ISM Code but also to maintain a working regime onboard a vessel that is both safe and environmentally compliant. 

The role needs to be taken seriously and given the support of the company as the effects of their work can have a direct influence on operations and financial performance. It should also be noted that compliance with the International Safety Management Code (ISM) is a condition for insurance cover.

So the role of the DPA assumes even greater importance in light of all these issues. It is a role that has to give the DPA access to the highest levels of management for it to be seen as an effective role. It is also the reason that both class and flag administrations need to have greater auditing of the role and operations of DPAs in the maritime industry.

The role requires the DPA to:

• Act as an advisor and supporter, not as a policeman
• Have the ability to assess, judge and motivate 
• Be independent, precise and thorough
• Be prepared to take challenges 
• Remain calm in a crisis 
• Be sensitive to different cultures 
• Recognize the crew’s limitations
• Create a sense of community team player 
• Possess time Management and organization skills
• Have integrity
• Manage changes and stay abreast with the professional trends affecting the maritime sector

The DPA’s role is clearly outlined in the ISM Code in three main areas/duties:

1. The company shall designate a person who shall be responsible for monitoring the safe and efficient operation of each ship with particular regard to the safety and pollution prevention aspects:

2. In particular, the designated person shall; 

(a) take such steps as are necessary to ensure compliance with the company safety management system on the basis of which the Document of Compliance was issued; and

(b) ensure that proper provision is made for each ship to be so manned, equipped and maintained that it is fit to operate in accordance with the safety management system and with statutory requirements.

3. The company shall ensure that the designated person:

(a) is provided with sufficient authority and resources; and

(b) has appropriate knowledge and sufficient experience of the operation of ships at sea and in port, to enable him to comply with paragraphs (1) and (2) above.