ISO 9001 · ISO 14001 · ISO 45001 for shipping
One integrated management system — not four sets of the same paperwork.
ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 share a skeleton with the ISM Code: controlled documents, risk, audits, non-conformities, management review. Full Ahead Maritime runs all of it as one dataset across the fleet, offline at sea, with evidence attached to every record. From €149 per month, 30-day parallel review.
- One audit programme
- One CAPA list
- Annex SL structure mapped to ISM
What each standard actually asks a ship manager for.
Plain-language definitions written for shipping, not for a generic certification brochure — and where each one already overlaps the statutory system you must run anyway.
- ISO 9001 — Quality management
- Requires a documented management system with controlled procedures, defined responsibilities, internal audits, non-conformity and corrective action handling, and management review. In a ship management company it governs how consistently work is planned, executed and recorded — which is why the Q in QHSE almost always means ISO 9001.
- ISO 14001 — Environmental management
- Requires identification of environmental aspects and impacts, legal compliance obligations, objectives and targets, operational control and emergency preparedness. At sea it overlaps heavily with MARPOL: garbage and oil record books, ballast water, EU MRV/ETS and CII reporting, and pollution-prevention drills.
- ISO 45001 — Occupational health & safety
- Requires hazard identification, risk assessment, worker consultation and participation, incident investigation and OH&S performance evaluation. On board this is the risk assessment, permit-to-work, near-miss and incident machinery the ISM Code already demands — ISO 45001 adds structure and proof of worker involvement.
- ISM Code — The statutory baseline
- The ISM Code is mandatory under SOLAS and already requires a documented Safety Management System, internal audits, non-conformities, master's review and continual improvement. Every ISO standard above is a superset of parts of it — which is why maintaining four separate systems is duplicated work, not extra assurance.
Annex SL clause by clause, in fleet terms.
The three standards share the same high-level structure. This is how each clause is satisfied by records the fleet is already producing.
| Clause | How Full Ahead Maritime satisfies it |
|---|---|
| Clause 4 — Context & interested parties | Fleet, trade, flag, class, charterer and vetting requirements held once per vessel and inherited by every register. |
| Clause 5 — Leadership & policy | Policies published to the fleet with read-and-understood acknowledgement per rank, tracked to the individual. |
| Clause 6 — Risk & opportunity | Risk assessments, environmental aspects and predictive equipment risk scores in one register rather than three spreadsheets. |
| Clause 7 — Support & documented information | Controlled document versions with revision history, mandatory to the vessel and available with no connectivity. |
| Clause 8 — Operation | Planned maintenance, permits to work, drills, bunkering and port operations executed against controlled checklists. |
| Clause 9 — Performance evaluation | Internal audit programme, KPIs (LTIF, TRCF, overdue jobs, CII) and management review packs generated from live records. |
| Clause 10 — Improvement | Non-conformities, corrective actions, root cause and verification of effectiveness — closed out with evidence attached. |
What the integrated system gives you.
One document control system
Procedures, manuals and forms carry a version, an owner and a review date. Superseded revisions stay in the trail so an auditor can see what was in force on the day of the event.
Combined audit programme
One annual programme covering ISM internal audits, ISO surveillance readiness, vetting and PSC mock inspections — each finding graded, owned and dated, never audited twice.
PDCA built into the record
Plan-Do-Check-Act is not a poster: objectives create actions, actions create evidence, evidence feeds management review, and review sets the next objectives automatically.
Environmental aspects register
Aspects and impacts linked to the MARPOL record books, EU MRV/ETS returns and CII rating already computed from your noon reports.
Worker participation, evidenced
ISO 45001 asks for proof that crew were consulted. Safety committee minutes, near-miss submissions and toolbox talks are records in the system with named participants.
Auditable offline
The vessel side works for weeks with no link. Records sync with their original timestamps and a tamper-evident hash chain, so the audit trail survives the gap.
Written by a Chief Engineer
Certification should be a by-product of running the ship well.
Most fleets prepare for an ISO surveillance audit by collating months of records into a binder in the two weeks before the auditor arrives. That effort proves nothing about the system — only about the collating. When the management system is the operational record, the pack exports itself and the audit becomes a conversation about improvement instead of a document hunt.
- One finding, one owner, one due date — visible to ship and shore.
- Management review inputs computed from live data, not retyped.
- Objectives and targets tracked against measured KPIs each quarter.
- Tamper-evident trail proves the record was not written the night before.
Included in every plan
There is no separate ISO or QHSE module to buy. Document control, audit programmes, CAPA, environmental aspects and the survey pack export are part of the same subscription as predictive planned maintenance: €149/month up to 5 vessels, €299/month up to 10 vessels, €499/month up to 25 vessels and €799/month up to 50 ships.
See pricingISO and ISM questions, answered.
The rest of the same record.
QHSE software for shipping
HSE, HSSE and QHSE explained, and the incident, risk and audit modules behind them.
Maritime compliance software
ISM, ISPS, SOLAS and MARPOL registers, certificates, drills and audit evidence.
ISM internal audit checklist
A free checklist to run the internal audit that both ISM and ISO 9001 require.