0050

Dear Mr Glover,
As we advised in our earlier email to you of 19th May 2023, 11.44, that we delayed the publication of our decision to revoke the Type Approved status for your device to 2pm this afternoon. This was to allow MMO to properly consider the representations you provided to us at 9.59am this morning. Having done so we are not persuaded, that the representation provided changes our view, and that revocation of the Type Approval status of the MS44 device is appropriate in this situation, with the revocation formally becoming effective at 3pm today.
As a reminder, for a device to be Type Approved by the MMO, the device must meet the specification set out in the i-VMS Functional Requirements specification (7th September 2021). As we explained to you in our letter of 13 March 2023, our independent testing has demonstrated that the MS44 device does not meet that specification, for the reasons set out in that letter. MMO provided an opportunity to submit a plan, with clear definitions of the parameters that plan which was described in the ‘Action Required’ section to meet to fix the issues by 10am 27th March 2023.
In the same letter, MMO were clear on the outcome if the plan was not accepted; you provided us with your plan on 17th March 2023. For avoidance of doubt, at no point did MMO ask you to submit this plan earlier than the date in the letter of 13th March 2023, in fact you were reminded that, when you met MMO 16th March 2023, that you had until 27th March to submit the plan.
As we explained in our meeting yesterday, that the plan was yours to submit, given the competitive nature of both being Type Approved and the marketing and sale of devices, all suppliers must treat consistently through this process; as such the process described in the letter of 13th March 2023, does not set out any parameters for iteration of the plan or additional support from MMO or its Independent Tester. The discussion of outlined the outcome of MMO review of your plan, and our decision what you proposed failed to satisfy us that the devices could be both fixed and within a reasonable timescale. Our letter of 18th May 2023 provides the detail of that decision.
MMO has considered the further information you sent to us by email this morning. Firstly, we are not in the position given the process that we outlined in our letter to you of 13th March 2023, you were provided the opportunity, the detail required to inform your plan and the timeframes for doing so, that opportunity has now passed. Secondly, we have reviewed
the information you have provided, as to whether we would reconsidered our decision to revoke the Type Approval status of the MS44 device. We have concluded that we are not persuaded by the information you have sent, as it does not satisfy us of the following:
IP67 Patches
– Whilst more detail has been supplied on the type of patch, we note the proposal is at the ‘prototype’ stage, with any testing yet to be undertaken.
– We note the change of proposal installation from fishers/engineers to engineers only, however, the timescale set out for installation achievability is not evidenced. Furthermore, this proposal, in our view, is an iterative update based upon direct MMO feedback in the letter 18th May.
Tamper Indicator
– During meetings on March 16th and May 19th, 2023, the manual engineer tamper alerting notification was still stated to meet the MMO iVMS Functional Requirements
– Due to the restating of the MMO iVMS Functional Requirements, we note now that you are proposing a new alerting mechanism using SMS messages.
– The I-VMS Functional Requirements Specification specify the SC_Tamper alert is included within the IVMS Transmission message, as referred to in Section 4 and 5, which we believe is still not achieved.
The revocation of the Maritime Systems MS44 device will come into effect from 3pm on 19th May 2023. We will confirm on our website thereafter that the revocation has taken effect.
Yours sincerely, Peter Clark
Director of Operations
IVMS@marinemanagement.org.uk