M Andersson, and M Lỹtzhửft, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.
SUMMARY
During recent years a great deal of effort has been expended upon improving the bridge in conjunction with maritime safety. This has been reflected in such areas as bridge resource management training, guidelines produced governing equipment and workstation design etc. Unfortunately less effort has been expended regarding the engine room spaces and control systems. As a result of earlier work one comes to the conclusion that it remains the veritable black hole. In order to achieve an actual contemporary analysis, field studies onboard seven target vessels are planned, representing different shipping conditions: Ice breaker, Car and truck carrier, Tanker, Coastal tonnage, RoRo and RoPax. The total estimated timeline for the project is fourteen months and its constituent activities are direct interviews with engineering crews, field studies and questionnaires. The project is Swedish nationally funded and the participants are SSPA Sweden AB, MSI Design, Chalmers University of Technology, World Maritime University and Kalmar Maritime Academy.
1. INTRODUCTION
New technology is introduced on board at a rapid pace.
This creates a need for improvement of the crews’
qualifications. One of the largest container vessels, the Savannah Express made in July 2005 heavy contact, due to an engine failure, with a link span at Southampton Docks in July 2005 [1]. One of the main reasons of the accident was that the ship’s engineers did not have sufficient knowledge of the main engine control system or specific system engineering training to successfully diagnose faults. The report stated under the heading training – general conditions that;
“Modern vessels increasingly rely on complex, integrated control and operating systems. Often these systems cannot be separated to enable operation of the equipment in a ‘limp home’
mode. The rapid introduction of such technology has placed ever-increasing demands on the shipboard engineers, who have often not had the requisite training with which to equip them to safely operate, maintain and fault find on this complex equipment.”
This gives clear evidence of how important the design of integrated control and operating systems are. Any interface with illogical, ambiguous or cluttered design risks promoting errors.
Liberia has submitted a paper to IMO [2] which proposes a review of specific IMO instruments from an ergonomic perspective inter alia the guidelines for engine-room layout, design and arrangements [3]. The Maritime Safety Committee has stated that a significant reduction of accidents to seafarers and human error can be obtained through the consideration of ergonomics and their working environment onboard ship [4]. The framework shall consider five key areas on board;
x Manual valve operation, access, location and
x Inspection and maintenance considerations x Working environment
x The application of ergonomics to design.
A visit onboard a merchant ship shows numerous examples of how relevant these areas are. Figure 1 shows the manual operation of the main steam outlet valve. It is necessary to climb a ladder to be able to reach the valve.
If the valve was turned 90 degrees the valve would be easier to access.
Figure 1: Manual valve operation
Before starting the main engines they need to be turned on air. Figure 2 shows how the engineer needs to stand
Human Factors in Ship Design, Safety and Operation, London, UK
© 2007: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects Figure 2: Opening the start air valve
The working environment is also of great concern to the engineering crews. The exposure to oil mist and chemicals, electromagnetic fields and exhaust gas leakages are just a few which give cause of worry.
The bridge personnel have also during recent years been the subject of several studies concerning fatigue [5] and stress [6] on the bridge. In 1987 the Swedish administration, the Swedish Ship owner’s Association
and the Merchant Marine Officer’s Association carried out a study to establish the working conditions of engineer officers in the Swedish merchant navy [7]. The study was carried out onboard ships with a frequency of watch duty from every other night to every fourth night and the alarm frequency during the unmanned period was close to two alarms per night. The results showed that the engineer on duty had a disturbed sleep pattern, too little sleep and reduced sleep quality for a number of engineers.
The study concludes that sleep problem is a major health problem. The recommendations made in the project were to involve the engineers in the design process of the monitoring and alarm systems in order to reduce the number of alarms. This has not had an impact in Sweden on the design of today’s ships. Now, twenty years later, the number of crewmembers has decreased further; the administrative burden has accelerated as well as an increasing number of inspections and demands from the authorities with long working hours and exposure to stress as a result.
A part of SọSam [8], a Swedish funded project, contained a pilot project which resulted in an MTO (man, technology and organisation) audit of an existing ship’s engine control room under operational conditions. Figure 3 shows one example of the results - the movement the engineer has to perform during the start up of the engine.
The mapping gives evidence of illogical placing of instruments and controls forcing the engineer to constantly move back and forth in the control room and also makes it difficult to survey the operational situation.
Figure 3: Sequential link analysis - departure
Human Factors in Ship Design, Safety and Operation, London, UK
The placing of instruments and controls should be aligned to the task which the engineer has to perform during different operational situations.
The placing should ensure easy access to switches and panels and also provide the engineer with necessary, accurate and real-time information about the operational data and status of the plant.
During the recent years a great deal of effort has been expended upon improving the bridge in conjunction with maritime safety. This has been reflected in such areas as bridge resource management training, guidelines produced governing equipment and workstation design etc. Unfortunately less effort has been expended regarding the engine room spaces and control systems.
As a result of earlier work one comes to the conclusion that it remains the veritable black hole.
A Swedish nationally funded project with the purpose of achieving an actual contemporary analysis is now underway. Field studies onboard seven target vessels are planned, representing different shipping conditions: Ice breaker, Car and truck carrier, Tanker, Coastal tonnage, RoRo and RoPax. The participants of the project are SSPA Sweden AB as project leader, Chalmers University of Technology as scientific leaders, MSI Design, World Maritime University and Kalmar Maritime Academy.
The total estimated timeline for the project is fourteen months and its constituent activities are direct interviews with engineering crews, field studies and questionnaires.
2 METHOD
The project will include direct interviews with engineering crews, field studies and questionnaires. The interviews are semi structured. The engineering crews will during these interviews be asked to express their thoughts and opinions about the environmental conditions in the engine department, ergonomic issues, engine and control room layout as well as technical interfaces. The interviews will be typed and inductively analysed.
2.1 MARMET
In addition to the above an interview template; MarMet will be used. MarMet was developed within SÄSAM [8]
and represents an MTO (man, technology and organisation) approach to human factors design issues.
The tool contains Human Factor, HF, procedures, guidelines, analysis techniques and templates for the evaluation of existing systems and environments (bridge, engine control room etc.) as a means of identifying potential or existing design problems. In addition MarMet includes a compilation of design guidelines from
2.2 FIELD STUDIES
The field studies will include traditional ergonomic activities such as the measurement of light, noise, vibrations, electromagnetic fields and temperature. The control room lay-out will be evaluated together with interface of panels and instruments. The MarMet tool will be used in parallel with observations and documentation of procedurals and routine work tasks.
3. CONCLUSION
The intent of this project is to raise the engine room issues to the maritime safety agenda in order to get a comprehensive grip of maritime safety from the widest perspective. Knowledge needs to be built regarding engineering, human factors, technology-induced errors and other causal aspects within marine engineering. The working environment needs to undergo the same systematic mapping and identification process. The result of this work aims to contribute to the development of ECR specific guidelines for physical work environment, control systems etc. and give an input to IMO, ISO, classification societies and national maritime administration and thereby contribute to the work initiated by IMO [2] which as earlier discussed, proposes a review of specific IMO instruments from an ergonomic perspective inter alia the guidelines for engine-room layout, design and arrangements.
4. REFERENCES
[1] MARINE ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION BRANCH “Report on the investigation of the engine failure of Savannah Express and her subsequent contact with a link span at Southampton Docks 19 July 2005” Report No 8/2006 March 2006
[2] MARITIME SAFETY COMMITTEE “MSC 82/15/4 Role of the human element” IMO, 2006
[3] MARITIME SAFETY COMMITTEE
“MSC/Circ.834 Role of the human element” IMO, 1998
[4] MARITIME SAFETY COMMITTEE “MSC- MEPC.7/Circ.3 Framework for consideration of ergonomics and work environment” IMO, 2006 [5] WMU “Fatigue at Sea - A Review of Research
and Related Literature” the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, 2006 [6] KOESTER, SỉRENSEN “Measurement of stress
Human Factors in Ship Design, Safety and Operation, London, UK
© 2007: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects Conference, 22-25 March, Daytona Beach,
Florida, 2004.
[7] FRệBERG, CASTENFORS, GĥNTHER, STENSSON, TORSVALL, ÅKERSTEDT “The Working Conditions of Engineer Officers in the Swedish Merchant Navy” The Swedish Work Environment Fund, 1987
[8] KÄLLSTRệM, “Maritime safety and the human factor, Final report of SÄSAM – Safety and human – machine interaction in waterborne transport”, SSPA Research Report No 129, 2004
5. AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES
Monica Andersson holds a current position of doctoral candidate at Chalmers. She is involved in a research project concerning human factors, safety and ergonomics in the engine department where she combines her previous experience as a marine engineer with studies of different aspects of human behaviour.
Margareta Lỹtzhửft is an Associate Professor in the Human Factors group at the Department of Shipping and Marine Technology at Chalmers University in Gothenburg. She is a master mariner, and in 2004 she received a PhD in Human-Machine Interaction. Her focus is Human-Machine interaction on the bridge and she is involved in several other projects such as fatigue studies.
Human Factors in Ship Design, Safety and Operation, London, UK