At a glance
Key Takeaways
What it is: maritime compliance and HSEQ software brings regulatory, safety, environmental and quality obligations into one auditable platform for the whole fleet.
ISM and ISPS are different: the ISM Code covers safety management and the ISPS Code covers security. Both are mandatory under SOLAS, with separate certificates and audit trails.
Why manual fails: at fleet scale, spreadsheets and email make audit preparation a sprint, leave NCR tracking inconsistent and let uncontrolled document versions stay in use.
What to look for: certificate management, NCR and corrective action workflows, internal audit tracking, safety observations, document control and fleet-wide reporting, integrated with maintenance.
How AMOS helps: HSEQ sits in one database alongside maintenance, inventory and procurement, delivered through Gateway, Horizon and Enterprise tiers. Fleets using AMOS can see up to 50% less time spent on audit preparation.
Definition
What Is Maritime Compliance and HSEQ Software?
Maritime compliance and Health, Safety, Environment, and Quality (HSEQ) software is a digital system that helps shipowners, operators, and fleet managers manage regulatory compliance, safety, environmental, and quality obligations across a fleet from one centralised platform.
It can help operators manage requirements and evidence associated with Class, Flag State, the International Safety Management Code (ISM), the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS), Port State Control (PSC), the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC), the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), and, where relevant, ESG and sustainability requirements, replacing spreadsheets, email chains, and paper-based tracking with structured, auditable workflows.
For fleet operators, this software provides the structured operational records and evidence needed to demonstrate compliance when an inspector, auditor, or surveyor asks for it.
Related reading: what is maritime fleet management software?
Regulatory scope
What Does Maritime HSEQ Compliance Cover?
HSEQ stands for Health, Safety, Environment, and Quality. It spans every process that keeps a vessel safe, its crew protected, its environmental obligations met, and its operational quality documented and auditable. HSEQ is a management and industry framework for organising these obligations, not itself an IMO regulatory regime.
The regulatory framework below covers the principal compliance areas relevant to commercial fleet HSEQ management. Additional conventions, codes and national requirements may apply depending on vessel type, flag, cargo, trading area and operating profile.
Maritime compliance software helps operators manage obligations arising from international conventions and codes, class requirements, Flag State requirements and Port State Control, alongside company policies, audit requirements, and environmental and sustainability reporting.
Regime / requirement
What it covers
Typical evidence
Oversight / verification
International Safety Management Code (ISM Code)
Safety management and pollution prevention through the Safety Management System (SMS). Mandatory under SOLAS Chapter IX. Shore-side responsibility sits with the Designated Person Ashore (DPA).
SMS records, Document of Compliance (company), Safety Management Certificate (each vessel).
Flag State, directly or through recognised organisations; internal and external audits.
International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code)
Maritime security, not safety. Made mandatory through SOLAS Chapter XI-2.
Ship Security Plan, Ship Security Officer, Company Security Officer, International Ship Security Certificate (ISSC).
Flag State and Port State Control.
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)
Construction, fire protection, life-saving appliances and navigation safety. Makes the ISM and ISPS Codes mandatory through specific chapters.
Statutory survey records and certification.
Flag State, directly or through recognised organisations; Port State Control.
International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL)
Oil, noxious liquid substances, sewage, garbage and air pollution across six technical annexes. Annex VI covers air pollution, ship energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions.
Statutory certification and records; where applicable, Ballast Water Management Plan, record book and International Ballast Water Management Certificate.
Flag State and Port State Control.
Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as amended (MLC 2006)
Minimum working and living standards for seafarers, from employment agreements and hours of rest to accommodation, medical care and complaint procedures.
Maritime Labour Certificate and Declaration of Maritime Labour Compliance, for ships within certification scope.
Flag State and Port State Control.
Class requirements
Technical rules for the design, construction and maintenance of ships, verified through periodic surveys.
Class certificates and survey records; status of any conditions affecting class.
Classification society surveys. A society may also act as a recognised organisation for the Flag State.
Flag State
Primary responsibility for ensuring ships flying its flag comply with international and national requirements.
Statutory surveys and certification.
The Administration directly, or recognised organisations on its behalf.
Port State Control (PSC)
Inspection of foreign ships in national ports to verify compliance with international standards.
Inspection reports; deficiency and detention records in the relevant PSC regime's systems.
PSC inspectors; deficiency and detention information may be publicly available depending on the regime.
These requirements work together, but they are not the same thing. SOLAS and MARPOL are international conventions. The ISM Code and the ISPS Code are IMO codes made mandatory through SOLAS. Classification is a separate technical framework. Flag State and Port State Control provide different forms of oversight and enforcement. The table above sets out what each regime covers, the evidence it produces, and who verifies it.
The regimes in detail
Each regime below is summarised with the obligations most likely to shape your HSEQ records.
International Safety Management Code (ISM Code)
Governs safety management and pollution prevention through the Safety Management System (SMS). Mandatory under SOLAS Chapter IX. Requires companies responsible for the operation of ships within its scope to establish, implement, and maintain an SMS, with a Document of Compliance for the company and a Safety Management Certificate for each vessel. The Code also establishes shore-side responsibility through the Designated Person Ashore (DPA), who provides the link between the company and those responsible for safety management on board.
International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code)
Governs maritime security, not safety. Made mandatory through SOLAS Chapter XI-2. Requires a Ship Security Plan, a Ship Security Officer, and a Company Security Officer. Vessels hold an International Ship Security Certificate (ISSC). ISM and ISPS are often treated as one "safety and security" obligation. They are not. Separate codes, separate certification requirements, and separate security and safety management processes.
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)
The principal international convention for the safety of life at sea. ISM and ISPS are made mandatory through specific SOLAS chapters. SOLAS also sets technical requirements for construction, fire protection, life-saving appliances, and navigation safety.
Class requirements
Classification societies establish and maintain technical rules covering the design, construction, and maintenance of ships. Periodic surveys verify continued compliance with class requirements. Where a classification society also acts as a recognised organisation, it may carry out statutory surveys and certification on behalf of the Flag State. Loss or suspension of class, or unresolved conditions affecting class status, can have significant consequences for a vessel's ability to operate, and may affect insurance, financing, and chartering arrangements.
Flag State
Has primary responsibility for ensuring ships flying its flag comply with applicable international and national requirements. Statutory surveys and certification may be carried out directly by the Administration or delegated to recognised organisations.
Port State Control (PSC)
PSC inspectors board vessels in national ports to verify compliance with international standards. Deficiency and detention information is recorded in the relevant PSC regime's systems, and may be publicly available depending on the regime.
Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as amended (MLC 2006)
Sets minimum working and living standards for seafarers, covering employment agreements, hours of work and rest, wages, repatriation, accommodation, food and catering, health and safety, medical care, and complaint procedures. Ships within the MLC's certification scope, including ships of 500 gross tonnage (or over) engaged in international voyages and ships of 500 gross tonnage (or over) operating from or between ports in another country, carry a Maritime Labour Certificate and Declaration of Maritime Labour Compliance as evidence of compliance.
International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL)
Governs prevention of pollution from ships, covering oil, noxious liquid substances, sewage, garbage, and air pollution through its six technical annexes. Annex VI addresses air pollution specifically and includes requirements relating to ship energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. Applicable ships also need to manage requirements under the Ballast Water Management Convention, subject to its scope and exemptions, which requires a ship-specific Ballast Water Management Plan and record book and, where applicable, an International Ballast Water Management Certificate, generally required for ships of 400 gross tonnage and above, to prevent the transfer of harmful aquatic organisms.
What makes this structurally demanding: Flag State, classification societies, and Port State Control each verify different aspects of a vessel's compliance, often through separate inspections, surveys, or audits. Vessels operate in remote environments with limited connectivity. Crew rotation creates knowledge handover gaps. And compliance obligations continue during both sea and port operations.
Environmental and sustainability requirements
Environmental and sustainability requirements are becoming a larger part of maritime compliance, though not all of them are IMO regulatory obligations. Regulatory measures include energy-efficiency and carbon-intensity requirements such as the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) and the Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII), where applicable, and the Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan under Annex VI. EEXI generally applies to ships of 400 gross tonnage and above, while CII applies to ships of 5,000 gross tonnage and above, subject to the applicable MARPOL Annex VI requirements and exceptions. Alongside these, the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) applies where relevant, and FuelEU Maritime has been in force since 1 January 2025 and is now in active compliance for ships above 5,000 gross tonnage calling at EU ports. EEA states including Norway and Iceland are not yet within scope, pending formal incorporation of the regulation into the EEA Agreement.
Sustainability information is increasingly requested by charterers, customers, and lenders as a commercial or financing expectation rather than a MARPOL obligation in itself. This evidence trail often overlaps with existing Annex VI reporting, so managing it well depends on the same operational discipline as the rest of the HSEQ framework, not a separate function.
The problem
Why Does Manual Compliance Management Fail at Fleet Scale?
Most operators have run HSEQ compliance on spreadsheets, email, shared drives, and paper at some point. For one vessel, that may be manageable. As fleet size grows, however, maintaining consistent control across multiple vessels becomes increasingly difficult.
The failure modes are predictable.
Audit preparation becomes a sprint
Preparing for a Class survey or ISM audit means pulling records from multiple locations: maintenance logs, Non-Conformance Report (NCR) files, corrective action notes, drill records, across vessels with different filing conventions. The documentation exists. Finding it is the problem.
Non-conformance tracking is inconsistent
An NCR on one vessel gets formally logged, investigated, and closed. The same finding on another vessel gets resolved informally, with nothing in writing. Fleet-wide, the picture is incomplete, and any auditor can see the gaps.
Internal audits lose their value without central tracking
The ISM Code provides for the Company to carry out internal safety audits on board and ashore, meant to surface genuine findings before an external auditor does. When results sit in vessel-side files, a Fleet Superintendent has no reliable way to see which vessels have overdue audits or open findings. An audit programme that can't be tracked fleet-wide is a set of disconnected local exercises, not a governance tool.
Incident reporting depends on its escalation path, not just the record
A near-miss or accident report triggers internal investigation and corrective action. Under the ISM Code, the Designated Person Ashore (DPA) provides the direct link between the vessel and shore management for this escalation. Depending on the circumstances and applicable requirements, it may also require formal notification to the Flag State, coastal or port authorities, Class, or other bodies. Run that through email, and escalation depends on someone remembering to forward the right document in time. A Technical Director evaluating vessel condition needs incident data linked to the vessel it relates to.
Document control determines whether evidence is trusted or disputed
Procedures and certificates only carry weight if version control is unambiguous. An auditor needs to know they're looking at the current, approved version, not a superseded one still in use on a vessel. Uncontrolled document versions can create an ISM compliance risk where obsolete or superseded procedures remain in use, and this is entirely preventable.
Fleet-wide visibility becomes difficult
Without a single data source, it's genuinely hard to know your fleet's compliance status at any moment: open corrective actions, certificates nearing expiry, unactioned safety observations. The answer lives in too many places, and the Fleet Superintendent absorbs the cost of chasing it down.
Crew rotation creates handover gaps
A relief officer's knowledge of outstanding obligations depends on what the previous officer remembered to communicate. A centralised system makes the handover complete and traceable from day one.
These are not failures of effort. They are natural limits of manual coordination at fleet scale. The right system does more than replace spreadsheets. It gives the fleet one structured way to manage compliance, evidence, and corrective action.
Want to see how AMOS supports audit readiness across your fleet?
Book a personalised AMOS demo and we will walk through how your compliance, audit and corrective action processes could run in one system.
What to look for
What Should Maritime Compliance and HSEQ Software Do?
Inspection and certificate management
Automated alerts for survey windows, structured workflows per inspection type, and a complete record of outcomes, so certificates don't fall through the gaps between crew rotations.
NCR and corrective action management
Investigation through to root cause analysis, corrective action, and verified closure. Not a log, a workflow with accountability and a full audit trail.
Internal audit scheduling and tracking
A structured audit calendar visible fleet-wide, findings logged consistently, corrective actions tracked to verified closure. This turns internal audits into an early-warning system for external ones.
Safety observation management
Near-misses, hazard observations, and other safety observations captured in one place and made visible to shore management, supporting trend analysis and systemic improvement.
Document control with clear version authority
A controlled source for approved procedures and documentation, with clear version history and access to the current approved version.
Fleet-wide HSEQ reporting
KPIs visible across the entire fleet, not compiled manually vessel by vessel.
Integration with maintenance and operations
Compliance evidence is often generated through maintenance execution. A safety management system running independently of maintenance and procurement creates duplication and gaps. This is where a Technical Director's view of vessel condition and the HSEQ team's view of compliance risk should meet in the same data.
From observation to verified closure
1
Observation
2
NCR raised
3
Investigation / root cause analysis
4
Corrective action assigned
5
Verified closure
Fleet-wide visibility spans the whole workflow, not one stage
For vessels operating with intermittent connectivity, offline and low-bandwidth capability can be an important operational requirement.
The AMOS approach
How Does AMOS Manage Maritime Compliance and HSEQ?
AMOS is built specifically for maritime operations, not a generic compliance platform adapted for shipping. HSEQ is a named core capability within AMOS, alongside Maintenance, Inventory, Procurement, Staff and Crew Management, and Data Analytics, all in one database, one unified platform.
Compliance does not happen in isolation. It is generated through the way a fleet maintains vessels, manages procurement, controls documentation, records incidents, and executes work. AMOS connects those processes in one maritime platform.
A corrective action from a maintenance finding, a procurement failure that creates a safety risk, a performance gap that generates an NCR, these connect. They need to live in the same data, not separate systems.
AMOS embeds HSEQ into daily operations rather than treating it as an inspection-time activity. Workflows are designed around the compliance, audit, and safety processes maritime operators need to manage across ISM and Class requirements. When compliance is embedded by design, inspections become confirmation of practice, not a separate workstream.
AMOS delivers compliance capability through three tiers, matched to operational maturity.
AMOS tiers compared
AMOS Gateway
AMOS Horizon
AMOS Enterprise
Core focus
Structured control for growing fleets: maintenance, inventory, and procurement in one system.
Fleet-wide standardisation of compliance.
Continuous compliance for global organisations.
HSEQ capability
Audit readiness improves as planned, visible maintenance produces documentation that stands up to inspection.
Standardised HSEQ workflows and fleet-wide KPI dashboards.
Enterprise-wide policy enforcement and executive dashboards linking risk, performance, and compliance data.
Typical fleet profile
Growing fleets replacing spreadsheets and email.
Fleets that need predictable outcomes and benchmarking across vessels.
Global organisations where compliance must be continuous.
Governance depth
Foundational control and documentation.
Standardised workflows across the fleet.
Governance support at enterprise scale.
AMOS Gateway
Brings structured control to growing fleets: maintenance, inventory, and procurement in one system, replacing spreadsheets and email. Audit readiness improves as a direct result, planned, visible maintenance produces documentation that stands up to inspection.
AMOS Horizon
Scales compliance to fleet-wide standardisation: standardised HSEQ workflows, fleet-wide KPI dashboards, and predictable outcomes that let you benchmark performance across vessels.
AMOS Enterprise
Built for global organisations where compliance must be continuous: enterprise-wide policy enforcement, executive dashboards linking risk, performance, and compliance data, and governance support at enterprise scale.
AMOS is Approved by leading classification societies
The shift
How Can a Fleet Move from Reactive to Continuous Compliance?
The shift HSEQ software enables isn't just efficiency. It's a fundamental change in how compliance is experienced.
Before the right system, compliance happens to a fleet rather than being managed by it. An inspection arrives, the team prepares, it passes or doesn't, and attention moves on. Corrective actions close when resource allows. NCRs accumulate.
Before
Reactive compliance
✕ Compliance happens to the fleet, rather than being managed by it
✕ An inspection arrives, the team prepares, and attention moves on
✕ Corrective actions close when resource allows
✕ NCRs accumulate
With AMOS
Continuous compliance
✓ Policies and procedures standardised across the fleet
✓ Fleet-wide visibility as data synchronises
✓ HSEQ KPIs visible fleet-wide, updated as operational data is captured and synchronised
✓ Corrective actions and safety observations have owners, deadlines, and audit trails
✓ When an inspector boards, the documentation is already there
Up to 50%
less time spent on audit preparation for fleets using AMOS, because preparation becomes a by-product of normal operations, not a separate event.
Based on reported outcomes across the AMOS customer base.
As regulatory and ESG requirements continue to evolve, compliance operations need to scale with them.
Quick answers
Frequently Asked Questions
What does HSEQ stand for in the maritime industry?
Health, Safety, Environment, and Quality, the management framework covering vessel safety, crew protection, environmental obligations, and operational quality. HSEQ is an organising framework rather than an IMO convention or code in itself.
What is the difference between the ISM Code and the ISPS Code?
The International Safety Management Code (ISM Code) governs safety management. The International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code) governs security. Both are mandatory under SOLAS, but they are separate codes, with separate certificates and separate audit trails.
What is a non-conformity report (NCR) in maritime compliance?
A Non-Conformance Report (NCR), sometimes called a Non-Conformity Report, is a record of a finding that requires corrective action. Terminology and classification can vary between an operator's SMS, auditors, classification societies, and Flag States.
How often are internal audits required under the ISM Code?
The ISM Code requires internal safety audits to be carried out at intervals not exceeding twelve months, extendable by up to three months in exceptional circumstances.
Why is ESG reporting becoming part of maritime compliance?
ESG and sustainability criteria are not themselves mandatory IMO regulation, but they increasingly influence chartering decisions, customer requirements, and shipping finance, often overlapping in practice with existing MARPOL Annex VI reporting.
Can maritime compliance software work without a constant internet connection?
For vessels with intermittent connectivity, offline and low-bandwidth capability can be an important operational requirement. There is no general IMO requirement that HSEQ software must operate offline.
Why does document version control matter for ISM compliance?
Auditors need certainty they're reviewing the current, approved version. Uncontrolled document versions can create an ISM compliance risk as a document-control consideration under the SMS, rather than as a standalone IMO requirement in its own right.
Take the next step
See AMOS in action
Understanding what maritime compliance demands is the first step. Seeing how it could work across your own fleet is the next.
Book a personalised AMOS demo to see how HSEQ, maintenance, inventory and procurement work together in one platform, and how that supports audit readiness for shipowners, ship managers and fleet operators.
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