Trans RINA, Vol 155, Part C1, Intl J Marine Design, Jan -Jun 2013
What we do know is that dependencies arise between the activities of different
team members, creating the
requirement that those activities are coordinated in an orderly way. Examples from aviation show that in cockpit teams, captains make more errors than officers, and the “pilot flying” makes more errors than the “pilot not flying” (Jentsch, Barnett, Bowers, & Salas, 1999). This indicates both a lack
of joint situation awareness, an uneven
workload, as well as a lack of coordination in combination with of unclear roles and unclear monitoring responsibilities within the team. Similar teams work on the ship’s bridge and it has been observed that the role and responsibility division between team members is dynamic and changing (M Lützhöft, 2004). We should widen our perspective and regard the engine room crew as part of the team, both on a planning, operational and follow-up basis.
In order to understand the demands and requirements made by both departments (that is, the engine room and the bridge), it is essential to establish common knowledge and an understanding of each other’s working procedures. The engine department is to be informed whenever the situation demands a manned engine control room—for instance, in narrow passages or when approaching or leaving harbour. It is also necessary to increase the awareness of the current and future situation for the engine room crew. They can benefit greatly from knowing what is happening on the bridge and from being able to track the ship’s position. Unpublished field notes from a user-centred design project (Petersen, 2010) show that engine and bridge crew tasks work on the same timescale but often asynchronous.
Current sizes of displays used in modern ships are
somewhat smaller than the mechanical/physical solutions they replace: Engine room mimic-panels, as compared to current computer displays, are one example. Another is the size available for the display of electronic sea charts: The mandatory area is limited to 270 mm x 270 mm – whereas a typical sea chart is 10 times larger. There is empirical evidence suggesting that overview is reduced or even lost as a result (Hénique, Lindegaard, & Hunt, 2009). With electronic sea charts becoming mandatory in ships by 2012, this is a cause for concern, especially when it comes to the establishment of common understanding and team work in the bridge team. In the engine room, the situation is similar; analogous to other control room environments ashore, the large mimics (images of the layout of the system, usually covering a whole wall) have been removed and reduced to representations in individual computer screens. Overview and the possibility to get a joint image have been all but lost. One of these aspects is called the keyhole effect, which arises when the size of the virtual information space is larger than the available viewport of the CRT, allowing users to see only a small piece of the information space at one time (Woods, 1995). Other issues common in this transition are getting lost, thrashing (flipping between displays to see two or more pieces of information at “the same time”, increased mental workload from interface management and underutilization of functionality (Watts- Perotti & Woods, 1999). The latter is especially important
New technology has been added in an effort to increase maritime
technology.
safety, both general IT and communication Rapidly
advancing technological
developments, and the introduction of computers in the control rooms on board has altered traditional work tasks, transformed ergonomic requirements, as well as increased administrative demands (Knudsen, 2009; M. Lützhöft, Ljung, & Nodin, 2008; Wagner, Lundh, & Grundevik, 2008). Several studies show that many seafarers find new technology challenging (Allen, 2009; Lundh, 2010; M Lützhöft, 2004). In addition to engine room automation, changes in communication systems have also contributed to reduced crew manning on board (Bloor, Thomas, & Lane, 2000). With increased communication technology available, the radio operator became obsolete. This has led to an
increase of work tasks and new demands of
knowledge for those remaining on board. The role of communication is naturally important, both between ship- ship and ship-shore but also, and less frequently supported, on board an individual ship. Nevertheless
it has been
known for some time that communication on board can affect safety and well-being, as seen in studies of for example safety culture (Ek, 2006); effects of multi-lingual crews (Sampson & Zhao, 2003) and the effects of communication on stress levels (Koester, 2007).
Much of the maritime communication research has been focused on finding a common language to communicate (usually “maritime English”, see e.g. (Hughes, 2000)), but less effort
is put
communication. The type of communication and the media used are more or less suited to
into finding methods or tools varying types
for of
communication. For instance, the media richness theory can be applied to communication (Daft & Lengel, 1986), in which the capacity to process rich information is analysed; the richer the medium, the more information it can process. Which medium to choose depends on the need to resolve equivocality (ambiguity, multiple or conflicting interpretations) and uncertainty. In order of increasing richness, we have (including media that were not available in 1986):
Posters, brochures Letters E-mail Video e-mail Telephone Video conference Face-to-face meetings
The medium to choose also depends, for instance, on context, the need for feedback and cues, the time a piece of C-12 ©2013: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
not only from an interaction point of view, but also regarding cost-efficiency concerns. If we buy and install innovative systems in our ships, we would probably like them to be used to the fullest potential, which is not always the case (Grabowski, 1989).
4. COMMUNICATION
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