BIMCO and CIRM on board propose standard for the installed update of the software of the ships



Marine association shipowning and international BIMCO and the Comité International Radio-Maritime (CIRM), the association that represents companies that operate in the field of the technologies for marine navigation, has announced to have Maritime subordinate to the International Organization (IMO), the agency of the United Nations charged to define the standards and the norms for marine navigation, the first proposal for the standard definition for maintenance and the used update of the software in naval field, with the scope to contrast the increasing risk of problems, incidents and delays in the marine traffic caused from obsolete computer science programs and to tackle to the problems of computer science safety.

Manifesting the auspice that the entire field of the marine transport adopts these standards, the general secretary and managing director of the BIMCO, Angus Frew, it has found that "the field is permeated by a made world of hardware. However - it has emphasized - the software are integrated in the majority of the physical equipment of the ships and the systems and the procedures in order to manage the software have not held the step with the technical developments, and this creates problems". Frew has specified that it has been assisted, for example, to incidents in which the ships they quickly have complete blackouts let alone malfunzionamenti of the radars and the correlated systems and all this because of determined unexpected difficulties from the lacked update the software.

The objective of the proposal "Standard on Software Maintenance of Shipboard Equipment" of the BIMCO and the CIRM is to assure that the updates of the software are put into effect in sure and systematic way. The proposal is time also to on board increase the visibility of the installed software of the ships, to assure a efficient planning of its maintenance and to guarantee an effective communication between the various parts involved in the maintenance of the computer science systems and the software.

BIMCO and CIRM have wished that the proposed standard can become also a standard ISO in way such to increase of the incisività and has specified that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has already received the proposal temporarily.