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Mission:
To develop and operate specialist management facilities which serve the
common interest of all Submarine Cable Owners.
Vision:
To be the global provider of independent
measures and Benchmarking to the entire submarine cable community for all
aspects of its business.
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At present IPRS reports are mainly about shipboard jointing, but the scope of the service will be expanded as the number
of IPRS Customers increases and recording of input data becomes more structured.
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Research has demonstrated that this is the area with the greatest potential
benefit. To illustrate this point herewith a few key statistics:
- Excluding weather, cable jointing accounts for over 60% of field repair
times.
- Over 20% of this time is spent resolving joint construction
problems.
- Over 4500 hours have been lost because of jointing problems since January
1996.
- On one cableship 360 hours
were lost during the construction of 24
joints because of jointing problems - an average of 15 hours per joint.
The cost to the international network of this level of failure is
significant. Aside from the direct cost of the cableship and increased system
outage time, further expenses sometimes arise from the use of extra joints and
cable. Such additions penalise system margins, thus introducing latent problems.
Joint construction failures can also cause entry into bad weather periods with
prolonged delay potential.
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All IPRS Customers are provided with an Excel file that contains source
data tracking sheets for all repairs. These sheets include information about the
exact nature of failure – an example is available here.
Those Customers who originally provided the repair Completion Reports (CRs) to
Qualtrack for analysis are also provided with the necessary cross-reference
information which links the CR to the relevant source data tracking sheet.
The information on the data tracking sheet enables everyone to understand
what problems were experienced during the repair, but only those Customers who
provided the CR for analysis are able to identify the cable system involved. In
this manner an audit trail is provided and Qualtrack's performance can be
collectively monitored by IPRS Customers without breach of cable system
confidentiality.
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Although IPRS exists primarily to serve the common interest of Cable Owners
and Maintenance Authorities it is recognised that the information produced is of
value to many other parties, including ship operators and cable suppliers. The
service is therefore available to any interested party on standard subscription
terms.
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During the Annual Review of IPRS all customers present are requested to
complete a feedback form. The last time this occurred was in May
2007. The
results can be inspected
here
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There are two answers to this question, both equally important:
- For benchmarking of ship performance to be accurate it is important to
gather all of the available data. This can only be fully guaranteed if all
Maintenance Authorities are represented within the IPRS Customer base.
- If IPRS is to become permanently established as a service to the industry,
Qualtrack must receive the bulk of its income from Cable Owners
and/or Maintenance Authorities. Many more qualifying Customers are needed to
support this strategically important objective.
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Qualtrack's management team
recognises that continuing independence and impartiality is absolutely
fundamental to achieving the Company Vision (which is to be the global provider
of independent measures and benchmarking to the entire submarine cable
community). All IPRS Customers can therefore rest assured that nothing will be
done which compromises this strategically important goal.
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