Marine Documentation Services

How Orchid Can Help

Modern ships have increasingly complex and automated systems and officers and crew often join a vessel with very little time to familiarise themselves with the vessel’s systems and safety procedures. They therefore have to rely on the quality of the technical manuals and training materials held on the vessel.

Orchid’s team of technical writers, illustrators and production staff can originate, produce and deliver the products and service needed to meet these requirements.

Orchid’s Marine Experience

Orchid have been providing documentation and technical information services to the marine industry for over 17 years. We employ staff that have worked at sea and our past projects have included writing Deck and Engine Manuals for mid size tankers and VLCCs, and SOLAS Training Manuals for cruise ships, including Cunard’s Queen Victoria and Princess Cruises fleet.

Ships Engineering Manuals

Orchid typically provides, or updates, the following types of ships engineering manuals:

Deck Officer’s Reference Manual
Engineer Officer’s Reference Manual
Bridge System Operating Manual
Cargo System Operating Manual
Deck System Operating Manual
Machinery System Operating Manual

Orchid can deliver prepared manuals using the following methods:

Traditional paper format, in a variety of sizes
Simple, structured, PDF files on a CD
Self-loading or pre-installed Integrated Electronic Technical Manual (IETM)

For further information see Technical Documentation.

SOLAS Training Manuals

Orchid can create, or updates, the SOLAS Training Manual for your crew.

Orchid typically provide these as colour printed and bound manuals to the ship, prior to departure from the Yard (if a New Build). Orchid can also make the documents available on our password protected download site so that PDF files are available to the ship over the Internet.

For further information see Technical Documentation.

Marine Training Aids and Materials

Orchid can provide custom training programmes designed to meet client requirements and demonstrate competency. Training programme development includes the following main elements:

Definition of training objectives
Development and structuring of courses and lesson plans
Development of student appraisals
Preparation of training manuals, course notes and visual aids

For further information see Technical Documentation.

Marine Computer Based Training

Computer Based Training (CBT) has real benefits for the training of shipboard staff, as the training can take place in the working environment and can be undertaken by individuals when they have time or during allocated time slots. CBT is particularly suited to the familiarisation of new staff with company procedures/systems. CBT can be modular in design and developed to run on industry standard multimedia computers.

With careful planning and document design it is possible to utilise material generated for engineering manuals in the preparation of the associated CBT modules. This can make the overall project more efficient and cost effective. The shared information can be supplemented in the CBT with the addition of video, animations, sound clips and exercises.

For further information see Computer Based Training.