Deficiencies

Deficiencies can be reported, updated and worked on with no connection, on the ship app and the office app, photos included. Changes wait on the device and are sent when the connection returns, and any conflict with a change made elsewhere is shown to you. Deficiencies can also be reported and worked on in the Navatom mobile app for iPhone and Android, offline too.

The office marks a deficiency as a repeat of an earlier one on the same vessel, and both records show the link on a Repeats tab, on both apps. Problems that keep coming back stay visible instead of closing quietly one at a time.

Every deficiency follows a controlled six-stage progression from initial discovery through to verified resolution. The lifecycle ensures that no issue can be prematurely closed without completing the required investigation, corrective action, and verification steps.

Clear status visibility at every stage means your DPA, fleet superintendent, and vessel master always know exactly where each deficiency stands. Overdue items are immediately visible, and stage transitions are enforced to maintain process discipline across your entire fleet.

When the work on a deficiency can only be done in a dry dock, the office postpones it to a scheduled or started dry dock of its vessel, with a reason. The dry dock gets a task for it, and closing the deficiency completes the task.

Each postponement and each cancellation is recorded in the deficiency's event history. Cancelling a postponement removes the task from the dry dock.

When an audit finding warrants formal tracking, convert it into a deficiency with a single action. The conversion carries forward all evidence, observations, and context from the original finding, creating a fully documented deficiency record ready for root cause analysis and corrective action.

No duplicate data entry, no lost context. The permanent link between the audit finding and the resulting deficiency means your compliance team can trace any corrective action back to the specific assessment observation that triggered it.

Connect every deficiency directly to the equipment item or ship section where it was found. This linkage transforms your deficiency records from a flat list of issues into an equipment-aware intelligence system that reveals which assets generate the most problems.

When a deficiency is linked to a specific piece of equipment, your maintenance team gains immediate context: What other deficiencies has this equipment had? Is there a pattern?

Should the maintenance schedule be adjusted? Equipment linkage turns individual deficiencies into actionable maintenance intelligence.

Link a deficiency to the rules it breaks, chosen clause by clause from the rule books available for whoever found it, such as the ISM Code. Navatom keeps the rule books, and the Rules tab lists each rule under its book with its clause number and text.

Classify every deficiency by both priority and severity to ensure the most critical issues receive immediate attention. Priority determines how urgently the issue must be addressed; severity captures the potential impact on safety, compliance, or operations.

This dual classification drives your team's workflow: high-priority, high-severity deficiencies appear at the top of every list and dashboard. Lower-severity observations are still tracked but don't crowd out the issues that need immediate action.

Track deficiencies from both ship and office environments in a single unified system. Issues discovered onboard are visible to shore management immediately, and office-initiated deficiencies are communicated to vessel crews without manual handoff.

The dual-context approach ensures that your DPA sees the same deficiency data as the vessel master. Whether an issue is raised by a crew member during a routine check or by a superintendent during a vessel visit, it enters the same workflow with the same accountability.

Assign each deficiency to the officer ranks who work on it on board and to the people who follow it in the office. Several can be assigned to one deficiency, and each sees it on their own dashboard.

Each deficiency's due date appears on its vessel's calendar, or on the company calendar for a company deficiency, with its ship and company assignees. The fleet calendar shows deficiencies beside audits, drills, training, certificates and dry docks, so the deadline is planned with everything else.

An administrator can mark a deficiency confidential when the issue needs discretion. When your company's settings hide confidential records, it is left out of lists, search and dashboards for everyone except administrators, and a vessel's own settings can hide it on the ship app too.

A healthy safety culture depends on open reporting. Confidential reporting removes barriers that might prevent crew members from flagging critical safety issues, equipment problems, or procedural gaps that they observe in their daily work.

Seven dashboard widgets show your deficiencies and the fleet's that are overdue or in progress, new ones waiting to be accepted, unassigned ones, and those postponed to a dry dock. Each shows as a count or as a table you can open, for the vessels you choose.

Two pages of deficiency analytics. Flow shows how deficiencies move through their statuses and where they wait; Root Causes shows which causes come back across the fleet.

Access the complete history of every deficiency across your entire fleet. Closed deficiencies remain searchable and filterable, building an institutional knowledge base that supports trend analysis, recurring issue identification, and continuous improvement.

When a similar deficiency appears on another vessel, your team can search the archive for previous resolution approaches. The fleet-wide history turns past experience into a competitive advantage for safety and operational excellence.

Document every deficiency with detailed descriptions and supporting evidence. Attach photographs, inspection reports, certificates, technical drawings, and any other files that help investigators understand and resolve the issue.

Rich documentation turns a brief deficiency note into a complete investigation package. When a corrective action team picks up the deficiency, they have all the context they need — photographs of the condition, relevant documents, and detailed observations — without chasing additional information.

Discuss deficiencies in context with threaded comments attached directly to each record. Ship and shore personnel can exchange updates, ask questions, and share progress without switching to email or messaging applications.

The comment thread becomes part of the permanent deficiency record. Every discussion, decision, and clarification is captured in chronological order, creating a complete narrative of how the issue was investigated and resolved.

Every action on a deficiency is recorded in its event history, with who did it and when. From initial creation through status changes, root cause updates, corrective action assignments, equipment linkage, and final closure — the audit trail captures it all.

The event log is not just a technical record — it is your compliance evidence. When an inspector asks "who approved this closure?" or "when was the root cause updated?", the answer is immediately available with full user attribution and timestamps.