DEME picked up the prestigious IADC Safety Award at IADC’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) last week at Cascais, Portugal. The award is given to honour companies that have shown outstanding achievement in the area of safety.
The award was presented by Peter de Ridder, president of IADC to Lieven Durt, director of QHSE-S DEME and Luc Vandenbulcke, managing director of GeoSea.
The company was chosen as a winner by the Safety Committee from among eight nominations. It won for its “Enhanced muster station” initiative. The muster station on board of jack-up vessel Neptune, which is deployed by GeoSea, was enhanced by painting numbered circles on deck. It is efficient during drills and emergency situations and it helps provide the following: a quick overview of the number of people gathered at the muster station, the number of missing people and a way to identify those who are missing. This enhanced muster station can be applicable to all dredging vessels and can be implemented at low cost (only a paint job) and minimum effort.
Lieven Durt, states: “This idea of the enhanced muster station by Dirk Pauwels, the captain of the jack-up vessel Neptune, already received a DEME innovation award and it is being implemented over the whole DEME fleet. It is a great recognition of the leadership of the captain and will motivate colleagues like him to promote safety in a similarly creative and appealing way. The IADC award will therefore be seen not only as a reward for the efforts of the vessel’s team, but also for that of the whole company.”