Definition in engineering: Actions necessary for retain-ing or restoring a piece of equipment, machine or sys-tem to the specified operable condition to achieve its maximum useful life. It includes corrective and preven-tive maintenance.
The ISM Code has different approaches inter alia aware-ness, training and maintaining permanent preparedness for any situation that might occur on board ships- not only emergency situations.
One of the key elements is element “Maintenance of ship and equipment.” In order to achieve the goals set out in this paragraph the company has established several aids to assist the different departments on board. The provided checklists, books or documents can only assist and are only as good as they are filled and updated.
The company has provided only a generic template with basic points but these needs to be updated in a ships specific way.
Together with the Inspection Team every Master shall adjust the template in a way to ensure that all relevant items for this ship are covered.
The same applies for any other checklist provided by the company.
It is the obligation of the ships command to crosscheck rel-evant documents and to inform the company for any chang-es in order to achieve the best maintenance program for the ship and company.