Quality circle

A quality circle is a small group of crew or shore staff who meet regularly to identify, analyze, and solve work-related quality and safety problems in their own area. The method comes from quality management and maps onto the plan-do-check-act loop that underlies the ISM Code safety management system. On ships the concept appears as the safety committee and crew improvement groups that review near-misses, procedures, and audit findings and propose corrective and preventive measures. The output supports continuous improvement of the SMS, a stated aim of the ISM Code, and feeds the management review and the company’s quality system where ISO 9001 certification is held.