TÜV NORD certifies marine equipment

Tobias Nelke (left), Vice-President of the SEECERT certification body at TÜV NORD Systems, received the certificate from Jörg Kaufmann, Vice-President Shipping at BSH.

 

TÜV NORD is now a designated body for the certification of fire prevention equipment and life-saving appliances on ships. Manufacturers can now pool audits or inspections under the umbrella brand of the TÜV NORD GROUP to launch their products more quickly or reduce certification costs.

Ships which sail under the flag of an EU Member State must carry fire prevention equipment and life-saving appliances with them that are certified in accordance with the European Marine Equipment Directive 2014/90/EU (MED). The German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has now designated the TÜV NORD certification body, SEECERT, as a conformity assessment body for the approval of fire prevention equipment and life-saving appliances. As of now, certificates can be issued from a single source in accordance with the modules required in each case and the necessary fire safety inspections. The fire safety inspections pursuant to 2010 FT Code (Resolution MSC.307(88)) of the International Maritime Organization IMO are carried out by DMT, a subsidiary of the TÜV NORD GROUP; approval in accordance with the MED directive is granted by the TÜV NORD certification body SEECERT.

“We’re currently seeing a great deal of interest in the market, as the new range of inspections offers an obvious advantage to the manufacturers of marine equipment: we can slim down the approvals process and save time in the process since we can pool inspections and audits and coordinate them very closely with one another,” explains SEECERT Vice-President Tobias Nelke.

Once they have been approved, the products are labelled with the WheelMark conformity mark. These products can then be used throughout the EU on EU-flagged ships with no requirement for additional national approval. The approval is granted for a limited period, for instance for five years. It can be extended without a renewed test as long as no changes to the prototype of the piece of equipment in question have taken place and the relevant directive has not brought about a change in the requirements. A test of the fire protection characteristics in accordance with 2010 FTP Code must be repeated at least every 15 years.