British manufacturer of marine safety and survival equipments Survitec has received DNV GL Z-17 certification as a class-approved service provider for all DNV-GL classed vessels operating various brands of safety and survival equipment, including lifeboats, liferafts, marine evacuation systems (MES) and fire-fighting equipment and breathing apparatus.
“The certification means that all Survitec sites carrying out work on lifeboats, fire-fighting equipment, SCBA and LSA to ships and mobile offshore units (MOU) to SOLAS standards are included in the Z-17 approval,” said Mats Hestmann, Group Quality, Health and Safety Manager, Survitec.
“Survitec is also approved to carry out class-approved annual inspections services, making it much easier for shipowners and managers to ensure their safety and survival systems are certified, compliant and, above all, safe, saving time and money. We now offer customers a true one-stop-shop for all their ship fire-fighting and survival products.”
The servicing/inspection of onboard safety equipment is often carried out by shore-based companies, with classification societies using service companies’ reports and recommendations on which to base their certification and documentation, such as a vessel’s Safety Equipment Certificate.
In order to carry out work on other manufacturers’ products, particularly lifeboats, MES, fire-fighting equipment, including BA, the service provider has to meet a series of stringent procedural and training requirements, as set by an IACS member classification society.
Through three fully-owned training centres, Survitec trains its teams to provide inspection and maintenance services across multiple brands in order to meet ship/fleet managers’ safety requirements. Survitec is confident that ship and fleet managers will take advantage of our global approval and anticipates an increase in inspection and maintenance services.
Paul Watkins, Regulatory and Compliance Manager, Survitec, said: “We have had global approval for most of our service stations for a number of years, but some legacy Survitec sites and those stations brought under the Survitec umbrella following acquisition previously had local certification. Now we have the global Z-17 Approval, we able to carry out inspection, maintenance and repair work onboard all DNV GL-classed vessels worldwide.
“While it is the crew’s responsibility to service and maintain their vessels’ lifesaving equipment, verified by an authorised service supplier, annual and five-year inspection and testing of this equipment must be carried out by an authorised service supplier.”
DNV GL, the world’s largest classification society providing services to more than 13,000 vessels and mobile offshore units, carried out a number of Z-17 audits at several Survitec service sites, following which approval was granted in early January 2019.
