HSE & QUALITY

1 - Quality Policy

Nowcasting International’s Quality Policy is to enhance customer satisfaction through continuous improvement, operational excellence and delivery of quality products and services.
 

Background

Nowcasting International Ltd is committed to offering a top quality marine forecasting service to its customers worldwide, drawing on a combination of state of the art technology, best available data and top quality forecasters. In this context our mission is;
 

In support of this Policy, Nowcasting International Ltd will ensure that;

• Nowcasting International Ltd works in partnerships with employees, contractors, customers and suppliers to strive for excellence and customer satisfaction in an increasingly competitive market place, in particular to;
  • Improve product and service quality
  • Source best available data for each region in which we operate
  • Improve cost effectiveness and efficiency
  • Actively manage our supply chains
  • Develop a positive employee attitude to achieving excellent performance and to satisfying customers need
  • Maintain systems for continuous improvement, sharing good practice and learning from experience within and without the team
  • Have suitable systems for document retention, and data archiving
• Nowcasting International will maintain a strong customer focus and commits to;
  • Satisfy our customers' needs and expectations
  • Make commitments we fully understand and believe we can meet
  • Meet all commitments to customers on time
• Nowcasting International is Performance Driven and we continuously Verify that our products and services meet agreed requirements through;
  • Monitoring, benchmarking and continuously striving to improve our business, products and services
• All employees recognise that safety is a particular concern for the use of our services, and we commit to optimising service quality with safety in mind

Projects - Quality Assurance and Control

Quality Plan

Nowcasting applies a Quality Plan for each contractor project, defining how it will be managed in an accessible and auditable format. Nowcasting has a standard Quality Plan and within this the following controls for a support service are identified as:

• procedure for the logging and management of all incidents/issues, requests, problem reports
• a procedure for the specification and agreement of changes to the Service
• a procedure for the reviewing of all end-products produced by the team, both at well defined stages during their production and on completion
• a full set of standards and procedures for Service development to include release of new products/services
• back up procedures for control of all documents, CD-Rom and Server.

In setting up its Services, Nowcasting takes into account the necessity of balancing the requirement for sufficient level of control to avoid poor quality work reaching the operational environment with the need to maintain a sufficient throughput of Services.
Nowcasting will at all times work with the customer’s management team and the user community in order to implement working practices acceptable to all parties and that will allow the provision of a high quality service.

Quality of staff

In order to deliver the agreed service to gain the confidence of the Company’s community, Nowcasting will ensure that the Service team comprises individuals who can demonstrate relevant business, technical and client-facing skills, who appear and act professionally at all times and who will quickly acquire the business knowledge and operational experience required to deliver a quality and cost-effective service to the Company as a whole.

2 - Health and Safety Statement

Nowcasting International Ltd is committed to offering a safe working environment to its employees and to maintaining that environment to the highest standards. As a company our mission is;

Nowcasting International staff undertake clerical / Personal Computer (PC) based work in the office, while sales staff spend a significant portion of their time travelling to customer locations to sell services. Employees are not engaged in work that would be considered “manual” or which involves operating mechanical equipment (other than private motor cars), or any other type of activity which might be considered “dangerous”. The company is not engaged in any form of manufacturing.
Nowcasting International has considered the risks to employees and the Risks and related policies are listed below

Office Risks;

• Electrical exposure; All employees work extensively with computers and related peripherals, connected to the electrical supply as well as other electric powered office equipment.
  • Policy; All electrical equipment will be sourced from reputable suppliers. Any electrical faults in the equipment will be immediately referred to a qualified maintenance and repair service.
• Fire; The office building is protected by a fire alarm service.
  • Policy; All fire exits will be kept clear at all times.
  • Policy; All employees will be kept informed of the location of fire extinguishers and will be trained in their usage
  • Policy; In the event of a fire being noticed the alarm must be raised. Once the fire alarm sounds or a fire is noticed, employees should leave the premises by the nearest fire exit (the offices are on the ground floor). Emergency services will be notified, and employees will not re-enter the premises unless authorised to do so by the emergency services or Building Management.
• General Hazards; From time to time tripping hazards or other minor hazards will appear due to items being left on floors etc. leading to possible tripping or similar risks.
  • Policy; all employees must ensure that items are not left in areas where they may constitute tripping or similar hazards. Storage areas are provided and these should be used to store all items appropriately.
  • A first aid kit will be available at reception

Travel Risks

Employees travelling are fully insured and travel only in fully approved modes of transport to destinations that are considered to be “safe”.
While risks associated with travel are recognised, the nature of these risks are that they can only be dealt with in real time.

It is company policy, however, that employees use normal precautions for their personal safety at all times and that they observe the safety policies and instructions of carriers, hotels, and of course their host companies and premises.

From time to time, company representatives will visit customers’ ships, however, such visits are always while the ship is docked and at the customers invitation. Company policy is that all employees will strictly adhere to the safety policy and practices of the ship being visited.