PMS Class Survey Arrangement & Machinery Credit Guide
An approved survey arrangement does not reward good maintenance. Plenty of ships maintain their machinery well and get no credit for any of it. What the arrangement rewards is provable maintenance — work carried out, recorded, traceable to a person, a reading and a criterion, and still retrievable a year later when a surveyor asks. That distinction is the single thing that decides whether an application succeeds and whether the arrangement survives its first audit.
Class survey arrangement · machinery credit
Maintenance earns credit. Records prove it happened. Only one of those is audited.
Records built to survive an audit, not just to tick a job closed
What an approved PMS survey arrangement actually buys
The arrangement replaces opening machinery for a surveyor with crediting machinery on the evidence of maintenance already carried out. Three practical gains follow, and they are worth more than the saved survey attendance.
Work happens when the machine needs it
Credits are distributed across the cycle on running hours and condition rather than on fixed calendar dates, so overhauls follow the machinery rather than the survey diary.
Work happens where the ship is
Items can be examined without a surveyor present, which takes attendance and its logistics off the critical path of every port call and every docking.
The record becomes an asset
A maintenance history built to survey standard is also what answers a vetting inspector, a buyer’s technical inspection and the next superintendent. The arrangement forces a discipline worth having anyway.
Eligibility: the gates before an application is worth making
Applications fail at this stage more often than at any other, usually because one of these was assumed rather than checked.
01
On continuous survey of machinery
The ship has to be on continuous machinery survey, up to date, with no outstanding Condition of Class on the items concerned. An open condition on a covered item stops the application rather than delaying it.
02
The system already running
Roughly six months of real operation before approval is sought. Class is assessing a working system with history in it, not a configuration that was finished the week before.
03
Software the society accepts
Either type approved or reviewed case by case. Confirm this before building anything, because a system the society will not accept is a project that cannot be rescued by good records.
04
A formally designated chief engineer
Named as the responsible person, with the system access that role requires. The authority is personal, so it has to be documented rather than assumed from the rank.
05
Demonstrable crew competence
The people who will operate the system must be able to show they can. This is tested on board at the implementation survey, not accepted on a training certificate.
06
The system working in English
Records have to be readable by a surveyor who was not there. A system running in another working language is a system whose evidence cannot be examined.
The application pack: eight documents and where each one fails
The submission is a description of how the ship will be maintained and how that will be proved. The final column below is where most first submissions come back.
Document
What it has to show
Where submissions fail
Organisation chart
Responsibilities ashore and on board, and who answers to whom for the scheme
Shore roles named by title only, with nobody personally answerable for the arrangement itself
Filing and retention procedure
How records are stored, for how long, and how they are retrieved
No stated retention period, or a procedure that cannot produce a job record from two years ago
Equipment list
Machinery aligned item by item with the continuous survey items
A list built from the maintenance system rather than from the survey scope, so the two do not reconcile
Tagging procedure
How physical machinery is tagged to match the codes in the software
Codes that exist only on screen, so nothing in the engine room can be tied to a record
Maintenance sheets per machine
Tasks, intervals, criteria for pass or fail, and the maker’s reference behind each
Tasks with intervals but no criteria, which makes every completed job unverifiable
Five-year schedule
Every covered item receiving its credit once within the cycle
Items clustered into the final year, which is a plan the society can see will not hold
Monitoring and data procedures
Trend monitoring, backups and access control
No backup regime, or edit rights held by everyone, so records cannot be shown to be reliable
Annual reporting format
The report that will be produced for each audit
Treated as an afterthought, then assembled by hand each year from sources that disagree
The equipment list and the tagging procedure are the two that cause the most rework, and they are the same problem seen twice: a maintenance system built for engineers and a survey scope written by a classification society were never reconciled. Do that reconciliation before submitting rather than after, item by item, with somebody who can walk the engine room.
The implementation survey
Approval of the documents is followed by a survey on board, which tests whether the paper system and the actual ship are the same thing.
Equipment list completeness
Everything that should be covered is covered, and nothing on the list is missing from the ship.
Tag to code matching
The surveyor picks machinery and looks for its tag, then finds that code in the system. This is checked physically.
Record consistency
The history already in the system holds together, with jobs, readings and verdicts that agree with each other.
Crew competence
The people running it can run it, demonstrated rather than asserted.
Satisfactory
The arrangement is in force and credits begin.
Satisfactory with remarks
In force, with specific points to put right. Treat the remarks as the audit agenda for next year, because that is what they become.
Unsatisfactory
A re-survey is required. The cost is not the attendance; it is the cycle time lost before credits can start.
Chief engineer authorisation and the credit types
The mechanism that makes the whole arrangement work is a delegation of examination to a named officer, bounded by what a surveyor can later verify from records.
What the chief engineer may do
Examine applicable machinery items without a surveyor present, and issue interim credit for them on the basis of the work carried out and recorded under their responsibility. This is the authority the designation confers, and it is personal to the holder.
What the surveyor then does
Reviews the records and issues confirmatory or examination credit accordingly. The surveyor is assessing the evidence of the examination rather than repeating it, which is why the record has to stand on its own.
Why the designation matters at handover
Because the authority attaches to a designated person, a change of chief engineer is an administrative event for the arrangement, not just a crew change. Handle the designation and the system access deliberately, with the incoming officer’s competence evidenced.
What this means for the office
Superintendents cannot fix a weak record from ashore after the fact. The support has to go into job definition, criteria and training before the work, because afterwards there is only what was written down.
Distributing machinery credit across the five-year cycle
Each covered item has to receive its credit once within the cycle. How those are spread is the planning decision that distinguishes an arrangement that runs smoothly from one that becomes a problem in year four.
Plan on running hours and conditionThat is what the arrangement is for. A schedule rebuilt around calendar convenience gives away the main benefit while keeping all of the obligations.
Keep the yearly load evenEven distribution is also what makes each annual audit survivable, because the surveyor sees a system in steady operation rather than a burst of activity before a deadline.
Protect the final yearYear five already carries the special survey and usually a docking. Anything deferred into it competes with work that cannot move.
Track overdue separately from postponedA postponement with documented justification and the right approval is a managed decision. The same job with neither is a finding, and the difference is only visible in the record.
Major overhaul items are where this bites hardest, because their intervals are long and their resource demands are large — the scheduling logic for those is set out in our guide to the main engine overhaul schedule.
Audit-ready by default
Every job with its reading, its criterion and its verdict attached
Marine Inspection records maintenance against the machinery item with the personnel, counter readings, measurements, the verdict against criteria and the parts fitted — which is the same list an annual audit works through.
The annual audit: what the surveyor actually examines
The useful way to understand the annual audit is that it is not an audit of maintenance. It is an audit of the evidence of maintenance. A ship can be immaculately maintained and fail it.
The annual report
Work carried out, breakdowns, repairs and any equipment changed over the year.
Task status
Planned, completed, overdue and postponed, with the four kept distinct.
Job traceability
Who did it, when, counter readings, measurements taken, the verdict against the criteria and the parts fitted.
Postponement justification
Documented reasons and the authority that approved them.
Corrective maintenance
Breakdown work reported, and replaced parts retained on board where the rules require it.
Spare parts
Availability, and consistency between the stock on the shelf and the jobs the records say were done.
Personnel
Qualifications and training records for the people operating the scheme.
System against machinery
Verified in the engine room, not on screen — the software and the ship still describing the same plant.
Data integrity
Document control, access rights, backups and whether records can be changed without trace.
The two that catch well-run ships are spare parts consistency and data integrity. A job recorded as completed with a part that was never drawn from stock is an inconsistency the surveyor can find in minutes, and a system where any user can edit a closed record is a system whose entire history is arguable. Both are configuration decisions made long before the audit.
How an arrangement gets withdrawn
Suspension is not usually the result of a single failure. It is the result of the system and the ship drifting apart until the records stop describing the plant.
1Work carried out beyond approved intervals without justification or approval
2Records incomplete or inconsistent with each other
3Damage discovered that was never reported to class
4The system state no longer matching the physical condition of the plant
5An outstanding Condition of Class on a covered item
6Critical spares missing, or inventory records not matching stock
7A change of management, owner or classification society
8Data lost with no usable backup
Item seven is the one that surprises superintendents. A change of manager, owner or society is an administrative trigger in its own right, so a fleet transfer or a change of class needs the arrangement handled deliberately as part of the transfer rather than discovered afterwards at the next audit.
Damage, repairs and the duty to report
The arrangement delegates examination; it does not delegate the duty to tell class when something has gone wrong. A major repair found during an audit that was never reported is treated as exactly what it looks like, and it puts the whole arrangement at risk rather than just that item.
Report, repair, record — in that order
Damage to a covered item is reported to class, repaired, and the repair recorded in the system. Doing the middle step first and the first step never is the most common way a good arrangement is lost.
Keep the replaced parts
Several rule sets require replaced parts to be retained on board so they can be examined at the audit. Discarding them removes the physical evidence behind the record.
Breakdown work is still scheme work
Corrective maintenance belongs in the same system with the same traceability as planned work. A parallel paper trail for breakdowns is a gap the audit will find.
A wrong interval is something to report too
An item found in poor condition at its scheduled job tells you the interval is wrong. Adjusting it through the proper route protects the arrangement; quietly shortening it does not.
Where a fleet runs several ships under the same scheme, consistency between them is what makes the whole thing sustainable — the broader approach is covered in our guide to planned maintenance system best practice.
PMS class survey arrangement: frequently asked questions
What are the eligibility conditions for an approved PMS arrangement?
The ship must be on continuous survey of machinery, up to date, with no outstanding Condition of Class on the items concerned; the system should have been operating for around six months; the software must be accepted by the society, by type approval or case-by-case review; the chief engineer must be formally designated with the appropriate access; crew competence must be demonstrable; and the system must work in English.
What has to be submitted with the application?
An organisation chart covering shore and vessel responsibilities, document filing and retention procedures, an equipment list aligned with the continuous survey items, a tagging procedure linking physical machinery to software codes, maintenance sheets per machine with tasks, intervals, criteria and maker references, a five-year schedule, trend monitoring, backup and access control procedures, and the annual reporting format.
What happens at the implementation survey?
A surveyor attends on board and checks that the equipment list is complete, that physical tags match the codes in the software, that existing records are consistent, and that the crew can operate the system. The outcome is satisfactory, satisfactory with remarks, or unsatisfactory requiring a re-survey.
What can the chief engineer do without a surveyor?
Examine applicable machinery items and issue interim credit for them, on the basis of maintenance carried out and recorded under their responsibility. The surveyor subsequently issues confirmatory or examination credit based on those records. The authority is personal to the designated officer.
How often must each item be credited?
Once within each five-year cycle. The chief engineer distributes the credits across the cycle according to running hours and condition rather than fixed calendar dates, which is the main operational benefit of the arrangement.
What does the annual audit look at?
The annual report, task status split into planned, completed, overdue and postponed, job traceability down to personnel, timing, counter readings, measurements, verdict against criteria and parts fitted, justification for postponements, corrective maintenance and retained parts, spare parts consistency, personnel qualifications, agreement between the software and the engine room, and data integrity including access rights and backups.
Can the arrangement be withdrawn?
Yes. Grounds include work beyond approved intervals without justification, incomplete or inconsistent records, unreported damage, the system state diverging from the plant, an outstanding Condition of Class on a covered item, missing critical spares or inventory that does not match stock, a change of management, owner or society, and data loss without usable backups.
What happens when the chief engineer is relieved?
Because the authority attaches to a designated person, the designation and system access have to be transferred deliberately, with the incoming officer’s competence evidenced. It is an administrative step for the arrangement rather than an ordinary crew change.
Does damage still have to be reported?
Yes. The arrangement delegates examination, not the duty to report. Damage to a covered item is reported to class, repaired and recorded, and several rule sets require the replaced parts to be retained on board for examination at the audit.
Class survey arrangement
Build the evidence first, and the credit follows
Marine Inspection holds machinery records to survey standard — tasks tied to criteria, readings and verdicts captured at the job, parts consumption reconciled, access controlled and history that cannot be quietly changed — which is what an approved arrangement is assessed on, every year.
