Det Norske Veritas, a leading international certifier and classification society, classes close to 17 per cent of the world fleet or more than 5,360 ships. For DNV, managing risk is a mission and the Norwegian company has been helping clients safeguard life, property and environment while focussing on research and innovation in risk management. “Quality is the main goal for us and we ensure our clients safety and reliability through our standards,” says Kamal Kumar, Area Manager, DNV India. In an interaction with Ramprasad of Maritime Gateway, he shares his company’s sustainable value creation in maritime transport and certification.

What is DNV’s approach to the Indian market?
We have been in India for the last 37 years having set up shop in 1972. Our classification business gradually grew into other areas such as machinery and components. In fact, the growth during the last few years has helped us enter the shipbuilding industry too. Today, we have about 30-per cent market share of the total Indian tonnage. We are also involved with most of the international players operating out of India.

As a certification body in India, we are the leaders. Sea Skill is our new line of service that certifies a company’s competence management system based on key standards.

On the shipbuilding side, we are involved with all the active shipyards and 50 per cent of the order book of Indian shipyards is DNV classified. Our approach is – be with the client and do things. Rightly so, we have a project office in each shipyard which helps us have a good control over the total production cycle of the ship. DNV Energy is our other vertical that deals with offshore platforms and pipeline certifications.  

During the last few years, we have grown in resources, both of revenue and people. We have 425 people spread in different business areas today. But quality is always our foremost priority, followed by profitability and size. Fortunately, we have been doing well on all the three counts.

How was the current year and what is the future business outlook?
We have 100 ship orders to DNV Class on the new building market. Fortunately, there have been re-negotiations, postponement of deliveries but not many cancellations. And so, we have enough work on hand. But the recession has had its impact on classification societies, given the nature of our business. We might see a decline in orders by 2011 and the postponement of new builds has created a bit of excess capacity in our system. But we have the strategy to go into advisory services. As mentioned, we are also growing on the offshore classification because India provides a good platform for these activities. DNV, at the corporate level, has merged classification and also offshore to get the synergy.

Apart from India which are the other important markets?
Sri Lanka, though is a relatively small market, its shipbuilding activity is quite good. It is an important market to deliver quality. The Colombo dockyard has been able to take some new orders. We have worked on one project with them and signed one more.

Vietnam has a lot of potential. The country has a strong culture and trade strategy since the people always fought for survival and emerged victorious. Their mission is to become the fourth largest shipbuilding nation.

What are the issues in terms of quality? How do you compare India with the world market?
The quality of finished products in Indian shipyards is comparable to global players, such as Japanese or Korean shipyards. In fact, a few shipyards in India are doing well in terms of quality.
But there is still scope to bring out better quality and it calls for commitment of the top-level management.

How is environment gaining importance in matters of certification?
There are some notations available from the class societies. From DNV, we have clean notation. Another notation is clean design which deals with structural design changes in terms of emissions. Environmental norms on the shipping side are a priority now. As an advisory company, we help the ship owner reduce fuel consumption that cuts down emissions and increases the bottomline. We also take up research on hull design and environment-friendly ships for the future.

What trends do you see in shipbuilding?
In the case of conventional vessels, the supply and order books have been high compared to the requirement. Offshore too has been steady. Following the current trend, better technology vessels are required as one moves from shallow to deep waters.