Safety and the ISM system · Module 05
Shipboard checklists
The daily, weekly and monthly checks on board, with versioned wording and no duplicated occurrence when two devices are offline.
ISM Code, clause 7
What it is for
The requirement, and the problem
Checklists look like the easiest module in a ship management system and are the one most often got wrong, for two reasons. The first is that a signed checklist has to keep the wording it was signed under, or the record proves nothing. The second is that a checklist has a schedule, and a schedule written as rows in a database produces two copies of this week’s check the moment two devices are offline at once.
This module solves both structurally. Templates are versioned and a signed record points at the version in force at the time. Due-ness is computed from the schedule and the last completed record, and no occurrence row is ever written — so there is nothing for two devices to duplicate.
How it works
Three steps, on board and ashore
- 1
Today’s list, and only today’s
Daily, weekly and monthly checks appear when they fall due, worked out from the last completed record rather than from a pile of copies.
- 2
Record what was found
A flagged answer needs an explanation. The record says no findings, or it says the findings — never a green tick over a skipped line.
- 3
Templates under control
A change to a checklist is approved by somebody other than its author, and a signed record keeps the wording it was signed on.
Example with demo data
What it looks like
A working picture of the module with demo data from the Ocean Pioneer — the same ship you find in the demo.
Try the demo — no account, in your browser, with the PIN 1234.
- Today — due, overdue, done
- All checklists — the whole list with its schedule
- Lifejackets stowed and complete
- Rescue boat engine started
- Liferaft lashings and HRUHRU date passed on raft 2 — replacement ordered.
- Escape routes clear
- Emergency lighting tested
In detail
What the module does
One daily screen, three sections
Due today, overdue, and done today. A rating officer opens one screen and knows what the shift owes, without navigating a template library.
Versioned wording, frozen at signature
Editing a checklist creates a new version. Records signed under the old one keep showing the old one. The template manager shows four derived states — draft, in review, in force, superseded — that come from the data rather than from a status field someone forgot to update.
The author cannot approve their own version
The person who wrote a version is refused as its approver. It is the same separation the purchasing module applies to money, applied to procedure.
Findings, and one word for no findings
A finding is read from the fields that were actually visible when the form was filled in — a hidden conditional question cannot produce a finding nobody saw. When there are none, the record says no findings, never pass, because pass is a grade and this is an observation.
A vessel overlay that may only add
A vessel can add a question to a company checklist. It can never remove one. That is the only arrangement under which a fleet-wide procedure means anything.
Eight checklists to start from
A new company begins with eight ordinary checks already written — and can rewrite every one of them.
In the app
On the bridge, on deck and in the office
The same records on a phone in a machinery space and on a screen in the office — with no signal, and synchronised when the link returns.
- Records — the completed register, by year and month
- Templates — the builder and the approval queue, permission-gated
The decision
No second engine
Checklists, permits, toolbox talks, handovers, daily reports and job checklists are all the same thing: a versioned template, an instance, answers, and a signature. They run on one engine, so a rule fixed once is fixed everywhere and a form type added later does not arrive with its own bugs.
What the checklists module adds on top is small and specific: how a finding is read, how due-ness is computed, what the daily screen shows, and who may approve a version.
Works with
One product, not nineteen
Drills and exercises
Statutory drills per shift and per person, with the departure check that says whether this crew may sail.
SOLAS III/19.3.2Defects and observations
One button to report a defect or a safety observation, from any screen, by anybody on board.
ISM Code, clause 9Handovers and forms
One form engine behind every signed piece of paper on board, with the wording frozen at the moment of signature.
ISM Code, clause 11Insights
Read more about this
Put one vessel on it for two months
No card and no implementation project. A company adds its own vessel and its own people on its own afternoon — and if it is not for you, you stop, with your data exported first.