Title: Marine accidents: quality vs. safety and one step further

Authors: Alexandros M. Goulielmos, Kyriaki Mitroussi, Androniki Gatzoli

Addresses: Department of Maritime Studies, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli & Dimitriou St., Piraeus 18534, Greece. ' Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK. ' Department of Maritime Studies, University of Piraeus, Greece

Abstract: We dealt with an essential issue – we believe – which is Quality vs. Safety in Shipping. Shipping is not proud for achieving zero defects or accidents, as it should. Efforts in the past – prior to 1998 – for the industry to implement ISO 9000 failed and a full investigation is here made whether even the – for us – safety standard ISM Code – after 1998 – will succeed. So, we have proposed a Total Safety Management philosophy, and a step further, which is a Safety Culture for ship|s Manager (Captain). ISM Code regrettably failed to recognise the actual role of Captain and restricted itself to |commitment on top|.

Keywords: total quality management; TQM; total safety management; shipping safety; chaos; complexity; safety culture; marine captains; marine accidents; marine safety; captain role.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOSM.2008.017781

International Journal of Ocean Systems Management, 2008 Vol.1 No.1, pp.45 - 67

Published online: 12 Apr 2008 *