Guest Post by CDR Lee Boone and Mr. Timothy Brown, Office of Vessel Activities (CG-543):
The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 required certain ships to have Vessel Response Plans (VRPs). Over the years, the financial and logistical burden of maintaining so many VRPs became overwhelming. To remedy that problem, the Office of Vessel Activities (CG-543) made major changes to the VRP program to reduce costs, improve efficiency and customer service. The initiatives will save millions of dollars during the next five years.
Before we took action, the annual cost of the contract to support VRP review ballooned and 24 off-site contracted personnel were needed to manage a VRP inventory of over 3,000 paper plans covering more than 22,000 vessels. These were stored in a 2,000 square foot library which is roughly equivalent to a 4 bedroom home full of VRPs.
In September 2009, we moved forward with a new strategic action plan and rebid the existing contract to reflect these new processing needs. We were able to cut staffing levels in half and co-located the contract staff within Coast Guard Headquarters alongside the CG-543 VRP management team. This side by side collaborative environment provided an opportunity to reduce review times and improve quality assurance.
As part of the move to Headquarters, the staff purged outdated and obsolete VRPs, reducing the library by 22 percent or the equivalent of a master bedroom and bath. The total cost savings from these changes add up to approximately $7 million for the total VRP program over the next 5 years.
The change that most industry customers will notice is that we are using email to send approval letters and to fix errors in plans. Vessel operators now save time and money as their vessels receive approval to operate within days, instead of weeks. To support this initiative, we developed a database to automate plan tracking. The reports are published daily on our website, homeport.uscg.mil/vrp. The next phase of improvements is the summer 2010 launch of a web based portal to allow for complete electronic submission and review of VRPs. This eVRP system will allow customers to upload their plans and revisions directly to the Coast Guard for review.
Since VRPs will be maintained electronically this will give Coast Guard field responders instant access in the event of a spill or other casualty and will allow the VRP staff to phase-out our paper based library; our old 4 bedroom house! The gains in efficiency to both the Coast Guard and vessel owners and operators are expected to dramatically improve.
