PAS, in cooperation with academia (risk assessment experts) has designed the Human ELement Maritime Enhancement Tool (H.EL.M.E.T.), an efficient risk based continuous compliance and HE competency program, which introduces the appreciation of a system-focused view, in which the interrelationships of people, processes, awareness, decisions and organizational actions are all assessed. It incorporates:

• Gap analysis
• Compliance with industry’s standards
• Office and fleet human-centered risk assessments
• Risk & non-conformance rectification in situ
• Training on the job
• FPI, CPI, SBP safety indexes

Contrary to the conventional audits where there is no interrelation and connection between fleet condition and onshore management, the H.EL.M.E.T. methodology was designed to assist (initially the dry sector) in identifying the current safety status by combining performance onboard and on shore, represented through the numerical Safety Business Profile.

It focuses on the early identification of unfolding risks, present in the fleet operation and onshore management that escaped attention. The magnifying glass is focused on the foundation of the pyramid of incidents – long before the appearance of near misses - aiming at detecting the root cause of unsafe acts, competency, conditions and risky decisions, by examining the effect of the human element in fleet condition, operations and management.

By following the theory of the 4-step evolvement, the target for H.EL.M.E.T. is to identify unsafe acts, conditions and practices, sometimes inherited, which have slipped attention, while at the same time, it helps in their isolation and elimination by placing the right controls to maintain the risk profile in reasonable and acceptable limits, constituting a unique assessment tool.

Unsafe acts and condition mean actions, decisions and conditions which are against best practices and may be the catalysts to accidents, penalties, detentions, ship rejection and bad reputation.

HELMET is based on a triangular proactive methodology, revolving around a drill-down approach and a universal list of elements suitable for fleet and onshore human-centric risk assessment.
It introduces Key Risk Indicators (KRIs), a new risk detection approach based on expert experience and input, best practices, and analysis of past data that complement the industry’s well known KPIs.