HELMET is the acronym for ‘Human Element Maritime Enhancement Tool’. The H.EL.M.E.T. methodology is Prevention at Sea’s contribution to the shipping industry and it was designed to assist the dry bulk shipping companies in ensuring compliance with the rules, meeting industry standards, and achieving continuous improvement and excellence.

HELMET is a continuous compliance monitoring program. It incorporates the development of a risk assessment methodology whose fundamental principles are based on the evaluation of the condition, management and the identification of potential human borne failures.

H.EL.M.E.T. was developed by Prevention at Sea in 2017 with input from Centre of Excellence in Risk and Decision Sciences of the European University in Cyprus (CERIDES). It targets optimization of the human element and building of a safe business culture by identifying unsafe conditions and acts before their escalation as well as mapping the human element; something which is missing from the bulk carrier field.

H.E.L.M.E.T. is a standardized methodology which does not rely on records; on the contrary, it proactively detects clear signals that correspond to unsafe behaviours, conditions or situations before they can escalate and cause real problems.

H.EL.M.E.T. focuses on the early identification of unfolding risks present in the fleet operation and onshore management that have escaped attention. Its magnifier zooms in on the foundation of the pyramid of incidents – long before the appearance of near misses.

Inspired by the ISM Code and existing industry standards, H.EL.M.E.T. does not require the introduction of complex systems and procedures. It reduces risk by providing a proactive means of identifying unsafe acts and conditions, which unavoidably lead to incidents, non-conformance, reputation damage and the cost of being off-hire.

HELMET introduces the appreciation of a system-focused view, while it dives in the interrelationships of people, policies, processes, decisions and organizational actions.

Based on the methodology, the system (vessel or ship operator) is divided into categories whose critical elements are pre-determined and assessed individually by applying pre-set weights. Each element of each category is assessed for its status and, based on its rating, the risk factor of the subject category is calculated. Adoption also safeguards against the impact of future risk assessment requirements, ensuring that shipping companies are supporting employees in taking the right decisions at the right time.

H.EL.M.E.T. involves a rating scheme and is based on a triangular proactive methodology revolving around a drill-down approach and a single 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 which complement the industry’s well known KPIs.

One of the fundamental principles of Prevention at Sea’s H.EL.M.E.T. methodology is the assessment technique revolving around open questions commencing with ‘how’ instead of ‘why’.