Comparison of International Maritime Organization (IMO) Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS) with ISO/IEC 17000 conformity assessment standards series and ISO 19011

Abstract

This study compares the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS) and ISO/IEC 17000 series as well as ISO 19011. The part that we investigate in this paper is the marine industry audit cycle that the IMO Member State Audit Scheme uses, such as ISM code certification of the vessels over 500 Gross Tonnage (GT) and the IAF peer evaluation of its members’ accreditation bodies. The reasoning for such effort is that both ISM code certification of the vessels over 500 GT and the IAF peer evaluation are long established and more mature assessment practices. The contribution of our study is to create a robust audit cycle for the IMO Member State Audit Scheme, which has not been examined in the literature.