Human factors in ship design and operation

CONTENTS The Human Element Competency Required for Design Appraisal O.Walker, Lloyd's Register, UK The Human Factor in the Investigation of Marine Casualties, Amendments to Manila STC

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CONTENTS

The Human Element Competency Required for Design Appraisal

O.Walker, Lloyd's Register, UK

The Human Factor in the Investigation of Marine Casualties, Amendments to

Manila STCW78 2010

J Alvite Castro, A Coruña University, Spain

Effect of Noise on Human Performance on Board Ships

Emek Kurt and O Turan, University of Strathclyde, UK

Human Factor Design in UK Defence

A Springall, Defence Engineering and Support, Sea Systems Group

Manning Centred Design in the Netherlands

W.M Post, TNO Human Factors, The Netherlands

Enhancing Safety Performance with a Leading Indicators Program

C Tomlinson, ABS, B Craig, Lamar University, M Meehan, AP Moller-Maersk

Performance of Seafarers During Extended Simulation Runs

A Kircher, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Fatigue and Performance in Bridge and Engine Control Room Watch Keeping on

A 6 on/6 Off Watch Regime

P.Maurier and P.Corrignan, Bureau Veritas, M.Barnett, D.Gatfield,

The Effects of Human Factors on Ship Collision Frequency

M Hänninen, Aalto University School of Engineering, Finland

Perception of Risk – Some Consideration of the Impact on the Inclusion of

Human Factors in Risk Assessments

V Pomeroy, University of Southampton, UK

Safety Consequences Onboard Shortsea Ships Due to Crew Innovation

W Post, TNO, The Netherlands

Mapping of Work Areas in a Platform Supply Vessel (PSVS): A Case Study

K.Nordby, S Komandur, C.Lange and A.Kittlsen, Aalesund University College,

Norway

Maritime Platform Habitability Assessment

A Woolley, M Riding, V.Pit and R Mead, DSTO, Australia

Analysis and Evaluation of Static Working Postures on Crew, to Determine

Ergonomic Risk on Board Vessels

A Lossa, D Avilla, Cotecmar, Colombia

Enhancing Marine Ergonomic Design Via Digital Human Modeling

T.Dobbins, STResearch, J.Hill, Trident Marine, S McCartan, Coventry University, UK

Developing a Standard Methodology for Dynamic Navigation in the Littoral

THE HUMAN ELEMENT COMPETENCY REQUIRED FOR DESIGN APPRAISAL

O Walker, Lloyd’s Register, UK

SUMMARY

One way for the human element to make an impact on a large scale is through inclusion of ergonomic requirements in Class Rules This can be achieved by two means; by introducing specific human element requirements into the Rules and by making current rule requirements with human element implications more explicit However, for surveyors who assure Rule compliance, their knowledge or awareness of the human element is often poor or indeed absent Any attempt

to address the human element in the Rules requires that the competence of surveyors is increased at the same time as the Rules are revised Raising awareness of the subject is an essential first step if the benefits of improved design are to be realised This paper outlines how Lloyd’s Register is striving to address the human element in the Rules whilst at the same time putting in place mechanisms to ensure surveyor competency is met The paper discusses the development of internal human element awareness training, the first step towards achieving a competent workforce in this area

NOMENCLATURE

ECL Ergonomic Container Lashing

(notation) GBS Goal Based Standards

HEWG Human Element Working Group

IEC International Electrotechnical

Commission ILO International Labour Organization

IMO International Maritime Organization

ISO International Organization for

There is a growing awareness in the marine industry that

the human element needs to be considered in ship design

if seafarers are to operate a ship and its systems safely

and effectively The traditional view which sees human

error as the individual responsibility of the officers and

the crew is simplistic and needs to change There needs

to be a move to recognise the root cause of error which

can often be traced back to the design and build stage in

a ship’s lifecycle These early stages of a ship’s lifecycle

present effective and practical opportunities for

mitigating some of the risks which the ship and its crew

would otherwise face when it enters into service

The operational context onboard ship’s has changed and

there is evidence to suggest that these separate

developments may not be compatible The seafarer

population is changing in terms of skills and competency

Crew manning levels are reducing The ship, its systems

and its equipment is becoming increasingly automated,

integrated and complex Special consideration thus needs

to be made regarding usability and operability There is a

danger that if this is not addressed, there will be major

repercussions for the industry

Classification Rules and Regulations and Type Approval are the main means of mitigating error in the design and construction of ships and their components Hence, the inclusion of Human Element requirements in the Class Rules and Regulations is one way to make a credible impact on a large scale Class provides a means, with corresponding verification, to make far-reaching improvements benefiting a large numbers of seafarers Addressing the human element both in the Rules and in supporting consultancy services is an activity that is strongly supported by senior staff in Lloyd’s Register (LR) and by its Technical Committee Addressing the human element in the Rules is however a challenging activity and one which has no quick win solution The process from concept through to approval of Rule requirements is lengthy, and one where many hurdles present themselves This includes gaining acceptance from both internal and external stakeholders Internal stakeholders such as surveyors need clear verifiable requirements and mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure they are able to competently verify ergonomic Rule requirements External stakeholders such as shipyards are also critical, as they are often the body who chooses the Classification Society If Rule requirements are too complex it will increase the cost of build and this will be unappealing to the yards

This paper will explore the testing nature of writing ergonomic Rule requirements and the issues regarding competency of surveyors who provide assurance of the Rules

2 CHALLENGES OF APPLYING

ERGONOMICS TO DESIGN

There are several problems that have contributed to the challenges faced by ergonomists when it comes to safe ship design A principal challenge is that ergonomic design for seafarers is largely not considered in the marine environment Although this is slowly changing, the marine industry still needs to take considerable steps

if it is to catch up with other high hazard industries such

as rail and aviation which have been proactive in

ergonomic design for many years

An early challenge will be in educating designers and

other stakeholders of the benefits of ergonomics in

design The reason why the industry still lags behind is

due to a distinct lack of knowledge among designers of

ships and their systems Naval architects generally

receive little or no training in Occupational Safety and

Health (OSH) or work system design The same can also

be said for Class Surveyors In general, operational

design comes some way behind the classic 3 S’s that

dominate ship design, i.e speed, strength and stability

In March 2010, after several years of development, LR

launched its first ergonomic themed Rules notation –

Ergonomic Container Lashing (ECL) The notation is

currently optional but may become mandatory in time

The intention of the optional notation is to improve the

safety of working arrangements for port workers and the

ship’s crew when performing container securing,

inspection and other related tasks The problems faced in

developing, gaining approval, and achieving buy in for

the notation from surveyors are noteworthy In critiquing

the work undertaken for ECL, several challenges for the

rules ergonomist emerged [1] Many of the challenges

could be considered relevant for applying ergonomics in

ship design generally

In order to understand the challenges faced, a brief

synopsise of the problems with current container ship

design is useful Container securing carried out by port

workers is one of the most dangerous and physically

demanding jobs in the shipping industry The main

hazards are falls from height, falls on the level, slips,

trips and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) [2] There

are several working positions onboard where such

hazards are prevalent, these include; working on hatch

cover ends, working on outboard positions, working on

lashing bridges and working between container stacks on

hatch covers The design of container ships is a

challenging high pace activity, where structural strength,

ship dynamics, carrying capacity and other factors

interact In general, the main pressure on ship designers

is to ensure that the container stacks do not impair ship

safety, and that the containers are safely stowed The role

of the port worker is generally not considered

At the outset, addressing the design shortcomings to

create a safe and operable working environment for port

workers, appeared to be a relatively straightforward task

The type of design requirements to address many of the

hazards could be described as relatively low cost, simple

measures However the process of developing criteria

that were ergonomically sound and technically clear,

assessable and acceptable to all stakeholders including

surveyors was not without numerous challenges and

proved to be an immense learning curve for the Rules

Ergonomist It is not unexpected that ergonomic

requirements proposed for inclusion in the Rules are

rigorously scrutinised by surveyors, as verification of Class Rules will be their responsibility

An essential element of developing criteria for ECL was

to gain approval and acceptance from surveyors A principal intention of the notation was that it be applied and understood by surveyors with minimal support Both plan approval surveyors and field surveyors require well written explicit rules For the plan approval surveyor, each applicable rule has to be checked against the ship’s plans without any ambiguity The field surveyor will be required to check those aspects of the rules that can’t be verified from plans

Even though the criteria in ECL are fairly straightforward the novelty of an ergonomic themed notation was met with resistance where, in the opinion of the surveyors, the requirements were unverifiable and assessment of compliance was not straightforward Surveyors make judgements about engineering, but not human behaviour They are not trained to make ergonomic judgements, thus some of the proposed requirements in the notation that were not structurally defined and could not be verified on plans had to be re-evaluated For any ergonomic requirements to be accepted, a Rules ergonomist learns quickly that it is essential that any criteria are defensible and they are of scientific merit

A further novel feature for surveyors in the notation and one which could be applicable to many ergonomic design scenarios onboard is the mitigation of occupational health hazards As stated earlier, the prevalence of MSDs among port workers is a problem Requirements in the notation relating to occupational health often required more justification to surveyors and designers possibly because OSH is unfamiliar to them

3 LR STRATEGY FOR RULES

DEVELOPMENT

A key part of the LR strategy for the human element is to improve the way it is addressed in the Class Rules The principle that Class Rules should address the human element comes from a decision of the LR Technical Committee (TC) in 2007 and the theme of seafarer safety comes from the extension of the LR mission statement to emphasise safety and environment

It is imperative that the strategic direction for human element rules development is justifiable with clear benefits if it is to be supported by the Marine Technical Director and the TC In order to develop the technical scope of the strategy, the themes and human element priority areas identified by the IMO Human Element Working Group and the Goal Based Standards Working Group have been examined The strategy has also been determined from the ILO Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) and other industry initiatives such as the Alert project This examination has helped determine the

forthcoming plan of work for addressing human element

in the Class Rules

The IMO made a statement in a 2003 Resolution,

‘Human Element Vision, Principles and Goals for the

Organization vision’ [3] While the Resolution was

devised to direct the work of IMO itself, it lays out an

approach that the human element should be addressed by

the wider marine industry It acknowledges that ‘(the

human element) involves the entire spectrum of human

activities performed by ships’ crews, shore based

management, regulatory bodies, recognized

organizations, shipyards, legislators, and other relevant

parties, all of whom need to cooperate to address human

element issues effectively’

IMO’s Human Element Working Group (HEWG), which

has up until now been convened at periodic sessions of

the Maritime Safety Committee and the Marine

Environment Protection Committee, considers design as

well as operational matters The HEWG has issued

Circulars to facilitate action A ‘Checklist for

Considering Human Element Issues by IMO Bodies’ [4]

includes working environment and human factors

engineering criteria In its ‘Framework for Consideration

of Ergonomics and Work Environment’ [5] it specifies

areas in which the efforts of IMO should be strengthened

in this regard The identified design areas have a strong

link with Rules development Included among the criteria

are stairs, vertical ladders, walkways and work platforms

and aspects of the working environment such as layout of

spaces, noise, climate and vibration

The Human Element is further addressed by IMO’s Goal

Based Standards (GBS) MSC 296(87) stipulates ‘that

the rules incorporate human element and ergonomic

considerations into the structural design and arrangement

to facilitate operations, inspection and maintenance

activity’ [6].The priority areas closely align with those

raised by the HEWG and these will become part of our

statutory programme of work in Rules development

The forthcoming implementation of the ILO MLC [7]

will also have implications for the Rules development

strategy In addition to operational elements, the

Convention also stipulates some design

recommendations, for example, crew accommodation,

washroom facilities, lighting, noise and temperature

levels

Another indication of what needs to be addressed comes

from the publication Alert! – The International Maritime

Human Element Bulletin [8] Alert! is a Nautical Institute

project, sponsored by the Lloyd’s Register Educational

Trust, which has been hugely successful in improving

awareness of the human element in the marine industry

over the last number of years Series 2 assembled a list of

top issues to be tackled as a priority Included in the list

was addressing slips, trips and falls and automation and

alarm management, both of which are strongly rule related

Analysis of these themes and priorities has helped develop a strategy for implementing the human element

in the Rules and has helped identify our programme of work Some Human Element themes relate to short or long term harm to seafarers and will be addressed in part through statutory instruments Their inclusion in the Rules will be determined by the schedule of the relevant instrument The Rules will detail the design requirements

to meet the statutory targets These issues will include;

 Environmental targets (noise, vibration, lighting, indoor climate, toxicity)

 MLC topics in particular accommodation and thermal injury

Other themes in the GBS and HEWG strategy are intended to be progressed entirely by Class These are;

 Slips, trips and falls

 Access / egress

The intention is that slips, trips and falls will be the next area of Rules development due to commence in 2012 Slips, trips and falls are the leading cause of seafarer injuries onboard commercial vessels and improving design to reduce risks meets what industry stakeholders need and expect

There will be three stages to each piece of development work: Research, Development and Approval (of proposal) Each stage will take approximately a year elapsed time This time estimate has been based on our current rule development work Much of the required time will be taken up in consultation with stakeholders and waiting for feedback

Rules development work for 2011 has seen proposed requirements for ergonomic design of control stations At the time of writing this paper, the rules proposal is awaiting approval from the TC due in late October This Rule proposal is discussed in more detail in the next section of the paper

4 RULES DEVELOPMENT

4.1 THE STORY SO FAR The development of ergonomic requirements is not a totally new concept to LR The importance of this discipline has been recognised in the development of human element rule requirements for key elements in other LR optional notations, for example Navigational Arrangements (NAV1), Integrated Bridge Systems (IBS) and Passenger and Crew Accommodation Comfort (PCAC) Also, as mentioned earlier the first pure ergonomic themed optional notation ECL was launched

in 2010 In development at present is another pure

ergonomic optional notation for the offshore support

vessel (OSV) bridge This notation will be called Ship

Control Centre (SCC) when launched

As a result of the aforementioned 2007 TC request to

address human element in the Rules, the current focus

has moved onto developing mandatory requirements in

our core Rules There are two possible means of

addressing human element in these Rules It can be

achieved by introducing specific human element

requirements into the Rules or by making current rule

requirements with human element implications more

explicit

In 2003, LR initiated a project to find out what the

society already said in its Rules with regard to the

Human Element [9] The study found over 1000

requirements that had implicit human element

requirements The findings from this project reinforced

the importance of addressing surveyor competency If

surveyors are not educated in the human element it is

likely that they are not making inferences regarding

human behaviour in any of these implicit requirements

There are some striking differences between having

mandatory requirements in the core Rules and

requirements in optional class notations Some

immediate differences include the fact that any

mandatory requirements will be applicable to all ships

and not to just those who have opted for it As such, a

balance must be struck that allows a best practice

approach but one that is realistically going to be

implemented on all vessels If ergonomic requirements

are not pragmatic and are too sweeping, they will not be

accepted and the time taken during the development

stage will have been poorly spent Further, there is going

to be an inevitable increase in human element

competency required by surveyors worldwide when

ergonomic requirements become part of the mandatory

class rules As such, need for a human element surveyor

authorisation becomes paramount This will be discussed

in the next section of the paper

4.2 CURRENT RULES DEVELOPMENT

In 2010, the first rule proposal was submitted for

approval to the TC as a result of their 2007 request The

changes proposed related to the Electrical Engineering

Rules and are intended to contribute to improving the

safety of electrical installations on ships, represent good

practice and to be practical to implement The proposal

was kept purposely short in scope in order to assess

receptiveness of the TC The proposed requirements

which both introduced some new requirements and also

made some current requirements more explicit were

approved

This year has seen a far more comprehensive and

ambitious proposal being put forward for approval that

addresses the human element in the control engineering

Rules Around two years have elapsed, since inception of the request to do the work, to the current stage where imminent approval is awaited The development of sensible requirements for control stations can be described as being relatively straightforward The challenge has been in making them pragmatic, verifiable and acceptable to all stakeholders These requirements will become applicable to all LR Classed vessels, so they need to be thoroughly researched, developed and be of good quality ergonomics

The existing control engineering Rules already have some intentional human element requirements However, surveyor feedback indicates that the full intent of some of these requirements is not always fully understood and their intended benefits are thus not necessarily achieved The scope, of these same requirements, doesn’t include all elements of the control work space There are for instance, no requirements relating to either the physical work environment or the physical layout of control stations in the present requirements The current Rules proposal therefore intends to address both the explicitness and scope of the current human element requirements

This ergonomic Rule proposal is more ambitious as we are seeking for it to have its own section within the Control Engineering Rules Chapter This section would

be sub-divided covering physical layout of control stations, the physical operator working environment, the operator interface, controls and displays The overall goal

of this proposed set of requirements is to enhance operational performance, reduce risks to safety and to reduce the likelihood of human error

The Rule proposal has been developed using a combination of International Standards There are no specific IMO, ISO or IEC marine standards for ship control rooms per se, so a range of standards specific for bridge design, engine room design and general control room design have been applied The proposal attempts to bring control station design to a standard comparable to the bridge by taking the applicable good design principles from the bridge standards and transferring them to control station design

5 SURVEYOR COMPETENCY

REQUIREMENTS

As ergonomic Rule requirements increase, the competency of surveyors needs to increase at the same time The verification of any ergonomic requirements in the Rules will be undertaken by surveyors LR is not intending to employ large numbers of ergonomists in place of surveyors to assure ergonomic requirements However, there may be special cases, for example the SCC notation (when launched), which may require ergonomists to provide assistance to plan approval surveyors This is because the notation has some very

Surveyors provide feedback during the course of the rule

development process In order that they provide valuable

feedback and also engage, with what is intended to be

achieved, they need to have competency in the human

element

As discussed earlier, surveyors are trained to make

decisions about engineering not human behaviour

Therefore, the need to have a Human Element

Competency framework for surveyors is equally as

important as any new human element Rule requirements

themselves Similar to Rules development, a programme

of work has been developed to meet this need

In order to develop an appropriate training programme a

Training Needs Analysis (TNA) was conducted in the

first instance

5.1 TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS

It is normal when doing a Training Needs Analysis to

have user tasks pre-defined Here, however, the analysis

is proceeding on the basis of material to be learned

Therefore, we need to define tasks before we can identify

the training gap in terms of knowledge, skills and

attitudes (KSA) and then work out training delivery To

some extent, the tasks and the KSA are being developed

together in this analysis

5.1 (a) Surveyor Tasks to incorporate operational

design

There are some surveyor tasks that would have an

indirect affect on operational design Approving

workshop practice, for example welding, is an example

of that The bulk of the surveyor’s tasks, however, can

have a significant and direct impact on operational

design The tasks to be considered are:

 Plan approval (hull and structure, machinery,

controls and systems)

 Initial survey, sea trials

 Periodic surveys

 ISM audits

 Regulatory survey

5.1 (b) Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes

If surveyors are to be expected to verify human element

requirements in the Rules, we need to ensure they are

provided with baseline knowledge of the subject They

will first and foremost need to gain an understanding as

to what the human element is and be persuaded of its

importance in the marine industry and in their day to day

duties Surveyors will need to know some material – or at

least enough to know where to find material - and when

to seek assistance with non-routine matters

The craft skills to be developed for the application of the human element to Rules include being able to conduct an informal context of use analysis and to identify critical factors in the range of contexts that may be encountered, for example language differences

The attitude that needs to be developed among surveyors

is one where they begin to think about operability as similar to other aspects of safety There may be areas where poor usability is irrelevant, and this needs to be acknowledged but the prevalence of areas where it is an error-producing condition needs to be appreciated

5.2 TRAINING DELIVERY PROPOSALS

In the first instance, there will be a human element awareness raising course developed This course will be fairly basic in scope, as it needs to lay the foundations for education in this subject The intention is that this course will be completed by all marine surveyors To address the findings of the KSA analysis the course will cover the following topics:

 The benefits of addressing the human element

 The relevance of the human element in design, build and operation in a rapidly changing marine environment (new technology, changing seafarer population)

 Regulatory expectations with respect to the human element

 The people aspects of system design (both the effect of (Occupational Health and Safety) and affect of people (‘human error’) with respect to hazards)

 Context of Use analysis for design evaluation of Human Element issues

 Information on where to access human element material

Further training needs will be met as the Rules develop

in specific areas Specific topic areas are required for the different types of survey task For example, the control station Rules, expected to be approved in November

2011, will require specific training and guidance for electrotechnical surveyors Both a guidance document will be developed to support these new Rule requirements and training will be developed tailored to the needs of surveyors assuring these requirements The competence of surveyors performing statutory surveys to apply the increasing number of human element regulations also needs to be addressed

5.3 TRAINING DESIGN The human element awareness raising course will need

to be completed by all marine staff who work in: field survey, plan approval survey, statutory survey or design support for new construction or existing ships In order to reach such a global community, it has been decided that

the training will be provided through e-learning

accompanied by an online assessment E-Learning is a

widely used training method adopted by LR and has been

considered the most practical approach to take for this

course

The course is currently in the process of being

developed At the time of writing this paper, the draft

storyboard had been devised and work is due to

commence with a third party training company shortly

The intended roll out of the course will be the first

quarter of 2012

5.4 IMPLEMENTING TRAINING

Implementing a training course particularly on a novel

subject brings a range of challenges However, the

human element is now part of the LR Surveyor

Competency Framework This has added considerable

weight to the training course as it will assist with its take

up As part of the competency scheme, it will become a

prerequisite for all surveyors to undertake the training

Successful completion of the training course and

assessment will become the means to assess the surveyor

competency in human element

The success of the course will be measured by the

number of queries received from surveyors We do not

expect surveyors to make expertise-based human element

decisions but we do hope that they will be able to

recognise human element issues and will seek assistance

from a human element specialist when required

As the Rules develop in the different engineering areas,

and specific training is developed, these training courses

will become part of the competency schemes within the

specialised domains

6 CONCLUSIONS

The need to address the human element in design is

essential if seafarers are to be able to operate a modern

ship and its systems safely and effectively Class Rules

and Regulations are the main means of mitigating human

error in the design and construction of ships and their

components Hence, the inclusion of human element

requirements in the Rules is one way of making a

credible impact on a large scale

Rule development is a challenging activity The process

is lengthy with no quick win solution There are internal

and external stakeholders who bring a diverse range of

needs that have to be addressed There is also a

considerable amount of persuading that needs to be done

in order to gain buy-in

In developing good quality ergonomic rules, it is

essential that they are verifiable and pragmatic They

need to be in a language that is understood by

non-ergonomists and for which compliance assessment is straightforward

The competency of surveyors needs to improve at the same time as rules develop Surveyor competency in the human element becomes essentially as important as any new rule requirements, as they will be the group who provide assurance that the Rules are satisfied This is a huge task that can only be achieved through awareness raising (such as Alert!) and training

7 REFERENCES

1 WALKER, O., EARTHY, J., SHERWOOD

JONES, B and TOZER, D., ‘Safety onboard ship A case study in the transition from science

to enforcement’, Lloyd’s Register, UK, 2010

2 SHERWOOD JONES, B., ‘Ergonomic design

of container ships to facilitate container

securing’, Lloyd’s Register, UK, 2008

‘Checklist for Considering Human Element

Issues by IMO Bodies’, IMO, 2006

5 INTERNATIONAL MARITIME

ORGANIZATION, MSC-MEPC.7/Circ,

‘Framework for Consideration of Ergonomics

and Work Environment’, IMO, 2006

6 INTERNATIONAL MARITIME

ORGANIZATION, MSC.296(87), ‘Adoption of the Guidelines for Verification of Conformity with Goal-Based Ship Construction Standards

for Bulk Carriers and Oil Tankers’, IMO, 2010

7 INTERNATIONAL LABOUR

ORGANIZATION, ‘Maritime Labour

Convention’, ILO, 2006

8 NAUTICAL INSTITUTE, ‘Alert! The

International Maritime Human Element

Bulletin’, The Nautical Institute, 2003-present

9 ANTONIO, L and EARTHY, J.V., ‘The

Human Element in Class Rules’, Lloyd’s

Register, 2003

8 AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY

"European Maritime Casualty Information Platform" (EMCIP)

1 INTRODUCTION

Technological advances in maritime sector have been

incorporated to the different fleets in a very dynamic way,

while human element has remained in a static position as

a basic component, with all its virtues and defects In

past times safety was reached by two ways:

implementing technological and engineering solutions to

improve safety and to minimize the consequences of

maritime accidents, and through safety legislation on

ships project and equipment requirements However and

despite of the technical innovations, maritime casualties

and incidents are still happening

At first, maritime accidents investigations used to

attribute almost the whole accident responsibility to crew

and shore personnel This implies that individual factor

was considered be the main causal factor However when

maritime accidents investigations were made in depth, it

was reached the conclusion that, in the worst case, 80%

of maritime accidents are due to, among other causal

factors, work organization and ergonomic problems

So, work organization and ergonomics seem to be the

main causes of human error, defined by International

Maritime Organization (IMO) as: “A departure from

acceptable or desirable practice on the part of an

individual or group of individuals that can result in

unacceptable or undesirable results” [1]

On the other hand, in 2010, an in depth revision on 78/95

International Convention on Standards of Training

Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW 78/95)[3] was

made The amendments resulted from this revision

should be added to the whole of acting elements involved

in maritime accidents development and, of course, in

their subsequent factual investigation

In 2010 the rate of fatal accidents in Europe experienced

an increase of 17% compared with 2009 one, as it is

shown in Figure 1

This Figure also shows that fishing sector is the subsector

with higher fatal accidents rate, accounting 33% over the

whole Spain Northwest region (Galicia) has one of the biggest fishing fleet in Europe [6] 40% of fatal accidents

in fishing sector happened in Galician fleet, so we consider Galician fleet data on maritime accidents as significant in European field

Figure 1 EMSA Maritime Accident Review 2010

Figure 2.ISSGA Number of accidents in Galician fishing

fleet

We can see, from data in Figure 2, an increase in the number serious accidents The long term effects of such accidents prevent the return of workers to their jobs [7] This breakdown in the downward trend, with and increase of 28% on ships involved in accidents and 17%

on deaths in 2010, leads us to conclude that maritime accidents investigation needs a new development on its more important element, human factor, especially on the more frequent incidence factors: work organization and ergonomics [8]

Figure 3 shows that collisions are the maritime casualties with higher number of ships involved, followed by groundings This gives us the approximate value of one life lost every 9.5 ship accidents in European Union

In this article the systematic and gradual ILO/IMO

process for human factors investigation and the models

used for identification and sequence of events are

improved through a systematic series of actions and

dispositions mainly based on 2010 Manila amendments

to STCW 78/95 Convention The ILO/IMO process was

chosen because it includes the models used by the most

important Maritime Accident Investigation Committees,

such as British Maritime Accident Investigation Branch,

North American Coastguard and the European Maritime

Safety Agency

The resulting models, once optimization is done, are

updated following the current legislation and could be

added to maritime accidents investigation methodology;

so that it is obtained a substantial improvement of

aforementioned process and the possibility of extrapolate

it to other models used in the future

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

We take as a starting point that every maritime accident

is due to a series of circumstances and actions On this

multi-causality basis we can classify an accident in

accordance with its main causal factor: technical factor or

human factor

The material circumstances or conditions that can lead to

an accident are known as technical factors On the other

hand human factors bring together factors, circumstances

and conditions that can influence, in a positive or

negative way, seafarers behaviour and reliability These

factors are related to individual characteristics,

ergonomics and work organization that are the basis of

maritime transport

Human Factors consist of personal factors and social

factors [9] Personal factors in turn consist of individual

factors, and work organization and ergonomic factors

The former ones are such as age, physical and mental

condition, training and experience, competence to face

risk and to team work and, mainly, stress and fatigue [2]

Work organization and ergonomic factors are, among

others, ergonomic design of equipment and instruments,

working and rest hours, workload, division of tasks and

responsibilities, complexity of tasks and maintenance

management

Social or Environment factors are, among others,

temperature, noise, visibility, vibration, weather and sea

- Working factors: inadequate regulation and poor maintenance

 Immediate causes:

- Unsafe actions: to do task without certification, training and/or adequate protection equipment

- Unsafe conditions: the lack of protection equipment, noise and vibration

In addition, STCW78/95 Convention and Code establishes in detail the required skills to develop several tasks, the level of knowledge and understanding required

to perform such tasks, the methods to demonstrate competence and criteria to assess it

Following the Manila amendments to STCW 78/95 are listed and summarized

PART A Chapter I General provisions

Training and assessment processes shall be done

by qualified personnel Reports containing measures adopted by Member States to give full effectiveness to the Convention should be prepared

Standards related to medical fitness for seafarers Chapter II Master and deck department







Chapter III Engine department

 Requirements for coastal navigation

 Training requirements for Electro-technical

officers

 Training for maritime environment awareness

Leadership and team working skills

 Updating of engineers competence

 Requirements for engine room ratings

certification

Chapter IV Radio Communication and Radio Operators

 The Radio Operators Services are updated to

reflect current regulations The International

Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue

Manual (IAMSAR) is mentioned

Chapter V Special training requirements for personnel

on certain types of ships

 Mandatory minimum requirements for the

training and qualifications of personnel on oil

and chemical tankers, and liquefied gas tankers

 Mandatory minimum requirements for the

training and qualifications of personnel on

passenger ships

Chapter VI Emergency, occupational safety, security,

medical care and survival functions

 New requirements to maintain professional

competence in areas where training cannot be

done on board

 New requirements for security training and

dispositions to guarantee that seafarers are

properly trained to face a piracy attack

Chapter VII Alternative certification

 Changes done to other Chapters are mentioned,

even the additional requirements for ratings

certification and specifications for approved

deep sea services

 Training required to certificate candidates to

several functions at the support level

Chapter VIII Watchkeeping

 Harmonization of rest hours with ILO 2006

Convention on Maritime Work requirements

with the aim of reducing fatigue and to assure

watckeeping capability

 Updated and extended requirements on working

and rest hours

 New requirement for alcohol and drug abuse

prevention

PART B “Recommended guidance regarding provisions

of the STCW Convention and its Annex”

Convention and those involved in implementing, applying or enforcing its measures, among others:

 Specific training on Electronic chart display

units and simulators

 Prevention of alcohol and drug abuse on board

 Implementation of online training methodology

Within the framework of tacit acceptance procedure,

2010 Manila amendments will enter into force on 1 January 2012 International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for fishing vessels personnel (STCW-F 95) will enter into force on

29 September 2012

As central part of this article, the adjustment of the IMO/ILO process for investigation human factors to

2010 Manila amendments was made The results of such

an adjustment are detailed below

3 RESULTS

Within the purposes of this study it is necessary to give priority to methods for maritime accidents investigation that allow to clarify if work organization and ergonomic factors were causal factors in the accident The most advisable method is the ILO/IMO process for investigating human factors due to the step-by-step systematic approach given to the investigation The process steps are linked to each other as it is shown in Figure 4

This part of the STCW Code contains recommended

guidance intended to assist Parties to the STCW

The results obtained from the adaptation of each step of

ILO/IMO process to 2010 Manila amendments to STCW

78/95 Convention are following detailed

Step 1 and 2: Collect occurrence data and determine

occurrence sequence

The first step in the human factors investigation process

is the collection of work-related information regarding

the personnel, tasks, equipment, and environmental

conditions involved in the occurrence using SHEL model

(Figure 5)

The figure of “elected delegate” should be established

between the investigator and witnesses to help

trustworthy data transmission SHEL model can be

combined with REASON model of accident causation to

develop and occurrence sequence [4] [5] The occurrence

sequence is developed by arranging the information

regarding occurrence events and circumstances around

one of five production elements, i.e., decision makers,

line management, preconditions, productive activities,

and defence At the same time the concept of active

versus latent or underlying factors is introduced

Active factors are the final events or circumstances

which led to and occurrence Within the objectives of

this article, active factors specified in 2010 Manila

amendments to STCW 78/95, such as drug and alcohol

abuse, medical standards, etc., should be added to usual

ones

Underlying factors may reside at both the personal and the organizational levels; they may be present in the conditions that exist within a given work system Examples of latent factor are: inadequate rules and procedures, insufficient training, high workload and undue time pressure Latent factors came from 2010 Manila amendments should be included: harmonization

of rest hours to reduce fatigue, application of leadership and team working skills, specific training on electronic chart display units, etc It would be very interesting to the investigator to have the possibility of accessing to electronic certificate registration, specified in Chapter A­I/2 of amended STCW 78/95, and to EMSA STCW Information System which is nowadays in its second phase of development

Step 3 – Identify unsafe acts/decisions and conditions

In step 3 of the process, the information gathered and organized using the SHEL and Reason frameworks is used to initiate identification of causal factors, i.e., unsafe acts/decisions and conditions

An unsafe act is defined as an error or violation that is committed in the presence of a hazard or potential unsafe condition Decisions where there are no apparent resultant actions but which have a negative impact on safety should also be considered as unsafe acts

An unsafe condition or hazard, as noted above, is an event or circumstance that has the potential to result in a mishap Once an unsafe act, decision or condition has been identified, the next stage is to determine the genesis

of that particular act or condition The last unsafe act precipitating the occurrence often provides a convenient starting point for reconstruction of the occurrence

Step 4 – Identify error or violation type

Figure 6 shows the GEMS framework adapted to 2010 Manila amendments to STCW 78/95

This portion of the process is initiated for each unsafe

act/decision by posing the simple question "What is

erroneous or wrong about the action or decision that

eventually made it unsafe?"

Step 4 involves two sub-steps:

 Sub-step 1 Unintentional or intentional action

First it is necessary to determine whether the

error or violation was an unintentional or

intentional action Unintentional actions are

actions that do not go as planned; these are

errors in execution On the other hand

intentional actions are actions that are carried

out as planned but the actions are inappropriate;

these are errors in planning

 Sub-step 2 Error type or violation The second

sub-step is the selection of the error type or

violation that best describes the failure, keeping

in mind the decision regarding intentionality

There are four potential error/violation

categories, i.e., slip, lapse, mistake and violation

A slip is an unintentional action where the

failure involves attention These are errors in

execution A lapse is an unintentional action

where the failure involves memory These are

also errors in execution A mistake is an

intentional action, but there is no deliberate

decision to act against a rule or plan These are

errors in planning A violation is a planning

failure where a deliberate decision to act against

a rule or plan has been made Routine violations

occur everyday as people regularly modify or do

not strictly comply with work procedures

Step 5 – Identify underlying factors

In this step the investigator attempts to reveal the

relationship between the occurrence errors/violations and

the behaviour that lead to them Such behaviour consists

of a decision and an action or movement In step 3, the

action or decision was identified In step 4, what was

erroneous regarding that action or decision was revealed

In step 5, the focus is on uncovering the underlying

causes behind the act or decision of an individual or

group Among the underlying causes special mention

should be made to those contained in 2010 Manila

amendments to STCW 78/95 Convention Underlying

causes of particular importance are those that could make

easier the removal of factors that led to working system

failure, such as fatigue, noise, vibration and bad smell

These factors are known as underlying factors They can

be found by examining the work system information

collected and organized using the SHEL or Reason

frameworks in steps 1 and 2

Step 6 - Identify potential safety problems and develop

safety actions

Once underlying factors and safety problems are identified an exhaustive list of safety actions should be developed These measures have to be implemented over the fleet with the aim of reducing to a minimum the possibility of recurrence One of the main tasks of Occupational Risk Prevention legislators is to avoid accident repetition With the goal of an effective implementation, these safety actions have to be economically feasible whether for the inherent saving derived from their use, or with the help of specific grant actions

4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

A step by step systematic method to the identification of human factors in maritime accidents was obtained This method is adapted to 2010 Manila amendments to STCW 78/95 Convention and Code Models from ILO/IMO process for investigating human factors were used

Ergonomics and work organization factors were identified as the main causal factors in maritime accidents, and fatigue is the main underlying factor that leads to such accidents So it is of vital importance to introduce Chapters AVIII and BVIII of Manila amendments to STCW 78/95 into the accident investigation method, at it is shown in Figure 5

The main steps in maritime accident investigation are to collect occurrence data and to determine occurrence sequence, which are Steps 1 and 2 in ILO/IMO process for human factors investigation Occurrence data should

be obtained as soon as possible mainly interviewing witnesses directly Sometimes this direct interview is not possible, so it seems interesting to consider if it would be advisable to allow a crew member to start the investigation in some particular cases, avoiding the destruction of evidences that could be used to clarify accident causes At the same time it would be necessary

to train some crew members in maritime accident investigation techniques, including this knowledge in maritime education and training curriculum

The figure of “elected delegate” should be established between the investigator and witnesses to help trustworthy data transmission Such data should be later incorporated to methods used in human factors investigation Regarding this elected delegate and with the aim of being an effective figure in maritime accident investigation it seems interesting to consider if it would

be advisable to have an appointed person in each Harbour Master’s Office or local body in charge of maritime navigation This delegate must be trained in maritime accidents investigation At the same time this person must be independent so that he could demonstrate full objectivity In the case of fishing ships this figure could be a member of fishermen associations

EMSA STCW Information System on seafarers

certificates issued in European Union should be used to

obtain information on crew members involved in

maritime accidents in a dynamic and accurate way

The use of standardized forms has been demonstrated to

be not dynamic enough The investigator experience

seems to be the main tool to identify not accurate

statements given deliberately by witnesses, through the

comparison between such statements and documentary

evidence provided by search and rescue services,

technical information provided by owners and technical

offices, and other information provided by weather

information services and fishing activities monitoring

services

Chapter VIII on watchkeeping of 2010 Manila

amendments should be taken into account to establish

unsafe acts/ decisions and conditions in Step 3 of

ILO/IMO process for investigating human factors The

failure to comply with fatigue reduction requirements

according to ILO 2006 Convention on Maritime Work

should be highlighted

The “Flow reiteration” mentioned in Figure 4 is

considered a very important tool This flow reiteration

guarantees that the adoption and use of safety measures

advised in Step 6 will not mean the appearance of new

errors and violations determined in Step 4 This process

will clarify if such safety measures help the appearance

of ergonomics and work organization factors which

could result in active actions that lead to an accident

The use of the systematic method described in this article

can be directly applied to investigation of maritime

accidents happened on board cargo and passenger ships

because in this kind of ships the working and living on

board methodology is better developed and introduced

than in other kind of ships[11] However this method

should be adapted to every particular occurrence in

fishing sector[10] because the specific characteristics of

this sector make human factors identification very

difficult

Data obtained after using adapted ILO/IMO process,

described in this article, could be added to the European

Marine Casualty Information Platform For that purpose

this database should be provided with a valid tool used to

distinguish the results compulsory included in the

platform since June 2011 The possibility of adding the

investigation reports in the European Common

Information Sharing Environment should be considered

Using the method described in this article the

identification and classification of human errors in

maritime accidents through ILO/IMO process is

improved to subsequently take the necessary actions

aimed to increase safety and to minimize the number of

human errors, strengthening preventive measures and

human reliability, acting on the system and developing technological detectors in real time

4 REFERENCES

1 OMI resolution A.849(20), OMI 884(21)

Resolution Code for the investigation of marine casualties and incidents, and amendments to the code for the investigation of marine casualties and incidents And MSC.255(84) ADOPTION

OF THE CODE OF THE international standards and recommended practices for a safety investigation into a marine casualty or marine incident (casualty investigation code)

2 MSC/circ.621 Guidelines for the investigation

of accidents where fatigue may have been a contributing factor

3 International Convention on Standards of

Training Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW 78/95)

4 Reason, J (1990) Human error New York:

Cambridge University Press

5 Rasmussen, J (1987) The definition of human

errorand a taxonomy for technical system design Rasmussen, K Duncan, and J Leplat (Eds.), Toronto: John Wiley & Sons

6 Riveiro Domínguez ,P (2001): A pesca

responsible na baixura Xunta de Galicia

7 Álvarez-Casado, E; Tello Sandoval, S;

Hernández Soto(1998);Caracterización de la sobrecarga biomecánica en trabajadores de barcos pesqueros de cerco en bajura Centro de Ergonomía Aplicada S.L - Barcelona

8 Louro Rodríguez, J “Trabajo a bordo y

siniestralidad laboral: condiciones de seguridad

y salud en los buques mercantes Universidade

da Coruña

9 Gil De Egea, B; Calvo Holgado, P (2003): Guía

de factores humanos para la investigación de accidentes marítimos Instituto de Investigación

en Seguridad y Factores Humanos (ESM)

10 García Puente, N; Carro Martínez, P (2010):

Aspectos de seguridad en la pesca de bajura INSH Centro Nacional de medios de protección Sevilla

11 Wagner, B (2006): Inspection of labour

conditions in merchant ships and fishing vessels Senior Maritime specialist, ILO Geneva

5 AUTHORS BIOGRAPHY

J Alvite Castro; Naval Engineer (qualified after a three­

year university course) and Postgraduate in Maritime Engineering by A Coruña University He has developed his professional activity during 15 years in ISTECNOR (Naval Engineering and Consultancy firm) acting as consultant to important Shipyards integral shipbuilding and repairing projects of Ferry ships, LPG ships, Cable-

EFFECT OF NOISE ON HUMAN PERFORMANCE ON BOARD SHIPS

R E Kurt and O Turan, University of Strathclyde, UK

SUMMARY

Most shipping accidents can be attributed to human error and one of the main influences on the crews’ performance and reliability is the environmental conditions on board such as vibrations, ship motions temperature etc Noise from the engines and machinery is one of the key environmental conditions which have been identified as a major factor effecting human operations on-board Therefore this paper, through careful research and the utilisation of an experimental case study, will firstly demonstrate and examine noise exposure assessments of vessels in operation, introduce an innovative ship simulator noise exposure experiment and finally analyse the results and feedback in order to determine the effects that noise exposure has on crew performance and well being on board ships By conducting this research it is envisaged that a relationship can be derived between noise exposure and crew performance

1 INTRODUCTION

With recent trends showing a decrease in crew numbers

on board ships, the study of adverse human performance

and reliability of the crew and the threats, impacts and

consequences this may have on system safety has never

been more critical It is a well-known fact that more than

80% of shipping accidents can be attributed to human

error and a main influence is the environmental

conditions which the human inhabits

The environmental conditions in which a vessels crew

must operate in can range to the extremes in terms of

temperature, humidity, ships motions, exposure to

vibration etc Noise in this sense is no exception and

when you consider the magnitude and the length of time

a crew member can be potentially exposed to in a normal

operational day, the short and long term effects of this, in

terms of safety, human performance and health, can be

substantial Therefore the authors of this research have

decided to take the first steps in documenting and

analysing the potential effects of the noisy environments

found on-board has on the crew’s health, safety and

performance

When one is in a vessels engine room the first

observation is that it is an extremely noisy environment

to operate in Main engines, generators, pumps, shafts are

all operational, and generally exposing crew to noise

levels of over 100dB plus Therefore the potential

impacts to the crew when exposed to this extreme

environment must be investigated

The obvious effect of hazardous noise exposure is to

human health Similarly the approach of regulatory

bodies when defining the limits to noise exposure has

always been concerned with protecting the human from

the bad effects of noise However the effects of noise on

task performance are complex and due to the limited

literature available regarding the effects of noise on

human performance it is not straight forward to predict

Therefore this paper will firstly demonstrate and examine

noise exposure assessments of operational vessels,

introduce an innovative ship simulator noise exposure experiment and finally analyse the results and feedback

in order to determine the effects that noise exposure has

on human performance and well being on board

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Noise has the potential to have severe effects on human health when the noise emission is above certain limits or the exposure to noise is for long enough As common knowledge, as a result of being exposed to hazardous noise levels, a TTS (Temporary Threshold Shift) in hearing may happen and moreover if the TTS in a humans hearing becomes repetitive or noise levels reaches an even higher level a PTS (Permanent Threshold Shift) in hearing may occur [1] Another potential effect of noise is that exposure to certain types

of noise can led to negative effects in human performance and comfort

According to the findings of research carried out by Melamed and Froom [2] performing complex and demanding tasks under noise is stressful and has physiological and psychological costs Moreover Melamed et al [3] further concluded that the combination

of high job complexity and noise exposure result in a higher risk of having an occupational injury

Weston and Adams found that the efficiency of weavers who were wearing ear plugs were higher when compared

to those who were not wearing ear plugs [4]

According to Broadbent, if a human is subjected to longer than 15 minutes of continuous noise exposure above 90 dB(A), the effects on vigilance and performance is negative [5]

In another study Button et al found that loud industrial noise exposure significantly increased the duration of reaction and movement times during simple vigilant tasks Respectively, loud industrial noise decreased a complex vigilance task to a greater degree [6]

On the other hand some of the studies found no evidence

between noise and performance and some studies have

even concluded some positive effects of noise on

performance

Harcum and Monti has observed no effects of loud

ambient noise (100 dB(A)) on visual and card sorting

tasks [7]

Harrison and Kelly reported that white noise improved

performance when compared to quite condition [8]

The above mentioned research gives a confusing

overview but the one thing that is certain is the fact that

noise has some interference with human performance and

the relationship between the noise and human

performance is not constant but may be subject to change

depending up on the noise level, noise type, task type and

complexity, duration, etc

Explanations for the contradictory research can only be

attributed to the studies being conducted in a lab based

“task vs noise” with specific situations which makes it

near impossible to compare in other domains, therefore

the need to conduct human performance research

concentrating on noise in ship environment is necessary

Reduction in effective communication is one of the

obvious effects of noise on crew’s operational

performance Considering that a ship’s crew do not

always speak the same native language, the noise effect

on communication apparently causes a threat for system

safety [9] Communication is often referred to in accident

analysis reports as a cause of accidents

Moreover the trend of decreasing crew members on ships

has made the job of a seafarer more demanding and crew

performance has become a key issue for system (ship)

safety Adding to this in some cases, crew members may

be exposed to the extreme working and living conditions

which may push the crew members to their limits

Therefore, designing safer working environments on

ships has become more important which might result in

an increased performance of crew members

For instance, in some cases watch keeping can be

regarded to be a monotonous task which can lead to crew

members getting bored and a decrease in their vigilance

and performance However, suddenly a critical situation

may occur which will require the crew member to make

a quick detection of the problem, make a correct decision

to mediate the situation, while at the same time

maintaining strong command and clear and effective

communication When a crew member is suddenly

involved in the type of situation above it is very clear that

the task will suddenly become cognitively very

demanding

Similarly, the key job skills for a task such as watch

keeping is highly complex Attention plays a crucial

controlling and supervising role which acts on many

different psychological levels: from the officer of the watches’ perception (selection of incoming information), information processing and control of the action selection and last but not least overall performance [10] When noise causes a deficit in attention it can affect the behaviour on all those levels leading to adverse performance

Vigilance is also considered as one of the relevant skills involved in watch keeping Vigilance is defined as “the extent to which the activities of a particular portion of the central nervous system exhibit at any moment, signs of integration and purposive adoption” or a state of readiness to detect and respond to certain specified small changes occurring at random time intervals in the environment [11]

3 REGULATIONS ABOUT NOISE &

VIBRATION ON BOARD

Harmful effects of noise and importance of protecting worker from hazardous noise levels at workplace is recognised widely As a result regulative and guidance material is available In this paper the focus is specifically on workers on board ships Therefore it is important to mention two main regulations applicable on ships

IMO Code on Noise Levels on Board Ships [12], adopted

by IMO as resolution A.468(XII) is designed to provide safe noise levels to protect the seafarers’ health from noise on board ships and provide a comfortable habitat for them The code aims to deal with the noise by setting the limits for each section of the ship in which the human

is subjected to the negative effects of noise

On the other hand EU Physical Agents Directive [13] aims to protect the worker health by setting up exposure limits This means that not only the noise emission but also the time spent in that noisy environment is important Authors of this paper made a comprehensive review on applicable noise regulations and standards From this review it is clear that the maritime world is faced with the issue of noise on board ships and its main effects on crew

However this does not mean that full understanding has been achieved on the parameters that have an influence

in determining a loss of performance or comfort of persons on board

4 RESULTS AND FINDINGS OF THE

RESEARCH SO FAR

The current approach on noise on board ships is focused

on the health issues of the crew, however it is necessary

to increase the understanding on the relationship between the noise and the loss of performance or comfort of persons on board The aim of this research is to

investigate the effect noise has on comfort and

performance of the human on board ships

4.1 COMPARATIVE STUDY

In order to investigate the current situation on board

ships with regards to noise, a comparative study was

carried out [14] The aim of this study was to investigate

the current situation on ships and compare the limits with

the limits set by aforementioned two regulations

First of all, noise measurements were carried out on 6

chemical tankers during sea trials However along with

the noise emissions measured from these ships it was

necessary to know the typical working pattern of the

tanker crew In order to gather this information a

questionnaire was designed and distributed to seafarers

A workshop was organised with two experienced

seafarers and typical working pattern of tanker crew was

decided

In order to calculate the exposures levels, software has

been developed using the methodology of EU physical

Agents Directive Figure 1 shows the snapshot of the

exposure assessment software Daily 8 hours equivalent

noise exposure values were calculated by the tool, for the

given exposure times and noise levels Moreover the tool

displays if any of the action or limit values are reached as

well as the remaining time for that person to continue

working in these noise levels without exceeding the

exposure limits or levels

The tool can also be utilised in order to optimise the

working hours and locations of crew members by

avoiding the risks from the noise hazards

Figure 1: Snapshot of the Software [14]

After the assessments results were compared both from

IMO and EU Directive perspective

Results of the study show that “Ships are easily fulfilling

the IMO criteria, while people working onboard these

ships are still likely to be exposed to unsafe noise levels

according to the EU Physical Agents Directive as well as

to the exposure level suggested by the IMO”[14]

Furthermore in this study calculations were made considering the hearing protection is never removed during the stay in high noise areas, however the questionnaires, expert workshops and a recent field study

on board a ship done by the authors of this paper clearly shows that hearing protection is often removed due to communication needs This would definitely lead to a further increase in the noise exposure level of the person 4.2 EXPERIMENTS IN BRIDGE SIMULATORS Following on from the identification of the current situation on board ships and the assessment of the noise with regard to the aforementioned IMO Noise Code and the EU’s Physical Agents Directive, it was concluded that more studies should be focussed on the possible performance and comfort decrease of crew members from noise exposure

Therefore this study was designed and planned in order

to understand the effects of different levels of noise on crew performance, and its possible result on safe shipping operations Experiments were conducted in

“Full Mission Ship Handling Simulator” which is situated in Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Maritime Faculty, Turkey Figure 2 shows an example experiment set

Figure 2: Experiment set [15]

4.2 (a) Methodology The total number of 22 subjects (17 male and 5 females, with ages ranging from 21 to 56) were used in the experiments (Mean = 26, Standard Deviation = 7.23747) The methodology followed during the experiment was as follows;

Subjects were asked to steer through the Istanbul Bosporus three times, but each time with different noise levels (noise levels respectively 50 to 55 dB, 87dB, 95dB)

In order to generate the noise in the lab environment noise was recorded from the ships bridge decks During the experiments this noise was generated with loudspeakers placed in the simulator room

In order to cancel the fatigue and effect of cumulative

noise exposure each participant was asked to take only

one experiment per day, similarly the order of the

experiments was counterbalanced with regards to noise

Counterbalancing is a method of avoiding confounding

(in statistics confounding factor is a term used for the

variable or factor in the experiment design which may

correlate with both the dependent and the independent

variable) among variables it does make sure that any

possible confounding effects cancel each other out For

example if the all the participants took the experiment in

same order (i.e first silent then medium noise finally

high noise) then there would be no way to proof that

noise affected their performance or they have learned

from the previous experiments Therefore 1/3 the

participants started with low noise, 1/3 the participants

started with medium noise, and rest started with high

noise

Three sets of surveys were distributed to the participants,

aiming to collect following data

 Participants’ opinion on their sensitivity to noise

in general and any underlying health condition

on the experiment day (Before the

experiments)

 The feedback regarding performance and

comfort of the participant of the experiment

(After each experiment)

 Feedback from the participants to compare the

three experiments that they took place in (After

all experiments finished)

In the experiments vigilance test was applied on

participants Vigilance is generally used in human factors

experiments in order to determine the workload

The vigilance test applied in the experiments is a task

which participants have to press a switch when a LED

light lids in the participants peripheries

The switch is attached to a glove which participant needs

to wear during the experiment

4.2 (b) Results

One of the most important findings of this study is the

fact that presence of noise significantly influences the

participants’ response times to the randomised stimuli

(P=0.022) [15]

According to participants the effect of noise on

annoyance was obvious (P=0.004), which in a longer

exposure might cause psychological effects and errors

leading to maritime casualties [15]

According to the results it was found that noise has

significant effects on tiredness (P=0.006) In these

experiments participants were exposed to noise not more

than fifteen minutes in duration, therefore even for this duration their feedback shows significant relationships [15]

Finally the participants compared the 3 experiment cases and result [15] are as follows;

 Participants found least noisy condition easier to accomplish (72.7%)

 Participants found high noise condition more annoying (63.6%)

 Participants found high noise condition more tiring (63.6%)

 Participants found high noise condition harder

to concentrate(50%) 4.2 (c) Passage performances Another performance indicator for the participants was their passage performance in the three noise conditions After each experiment the passage summary was generated showing the route that the participant has followed In order to create an objective assessment for passage performances, the deviations from the actual route and the area covered outside the lane has been calculated

Figure 3 shows the result file which was automatically created by the simulator:

Figure 3: Passage summary

The methodology chosen to assess the performance was

to calculate the deviations from the planned route Hence each result file is re-generated in an electronic drawing and deviations from the planned route and the total distance that the ship moved outside the lane is calculated (Figure 4)

Figure 4: Assessment of passage

Initial results show that there is a significant relationship

between noise and the deviation from the ideal route

(P=0.0360) In other words it was observed that noise has

an effect on the deviations from the ideal route which

may cause a threat for safety, especially when operating

in channel passages such as entering into a harbour etc

On the other hand, from the passage summary data, the

total distance covered outside the lane during the passage

has been calculated (Figure 5) Results of an ANOVA

analysis does not suggest a significant relationship

between the noise and the total distance covered outside

the shipping lane (P = 0.1104) This might be due to the

fact that being outside the shipping lane itself is not

enough to show a clear picture on the safety of the

situation, however the distance they are from the lane

must be taken into consideration, therefore using the total

area outside the lane is deemed to be more appropriate

Therefore another performance assessment was to

calculate the total area that the ship has covered outside

the lane, which might be considered as a dangerous

situation in terms of a higher collision risk The results

show tendency to significant relationship with noise

(P=0.062)

However it was also observed that some participants

were performing better on the high noise condition and

they mentioned that they felt more alert during this

condition The increase in performance of some of the

participants could be attributed to the fact the high noise

levels was increasing their awareness for the short

duration of the experiment It is unknown whether the

participants’ performance would suffer if exposed to the

high noise level for a longer period of time

The above may be explained by Broadbent’s study which

states that; “having longer than fifteen minutes of

continuous noise exposure results in decrease on

performance” [5] Since the duration of experiments

were around fifteen minutes the exposure level of the

noise may not have reached a level which it would

negatively affect their performance

One of the interesting findings of the research is that the participants are more likely to miss the lights when there

is a safety critical situation such as an overtaking of another vessel These situations are the likely ones where the negative effects of noise on performance and vigilance can affect the ship safety However the results from this research are really promising in terms of confirming the existence of a link between noise and performance

Figure 5: Total length travelled outside the lane

5 MODELLING

One of the key focus areas of this research is linking the human response to noise It was identified that there is a lack of knowledge about how noise interferes with human performance and comfort on board ships

Therefore the aim is to develop a model which will capture the relationship between the influencing factors (i.e noise level, frequency etc.) and the responsive factors (i.e subjective feedback, objective performance evaluation) which will show the effect on discomfort or performance of human

The ability to predict the effects of the changes in noise (levels, frequency etc) due to different ship design modifications on human discomfort/performance will result in human factors integration into design

6 CONCLUSIONS

This paper has reported the research carried out by the authors The focus was on noise and a detailed review of literature is carried out

One of the main points of note is the setting this experiment has been carried out in Typically the noise levels used in this experiment are not likely to be found

on the bridge of a ship However the purpose of this

research was to identify the link between noise and task

performance Therefore the job task in this context has

been used as a benchmark and the noise increased to

exaggerated levels in an effort to identify the link

between noise and performance

The current situation in terms of crew exposures to noise

on board ships was researched on six chemical tankers

and comparative study of two applicable standards were

conducted Findings of the research showed that even

though ships pass the noise criteria set by regulative

bodies, the crew inhabited in ships might still be

susceptible to harmful effects of noise

The research presented in this paper is unique due to

addressing the need of human performance research on

ship environment considering noise which does not exist

in the literature The attempt made in this research was

one of the very first noise performance experiments

carried out in ship simulators therefore the findings of the

research has great importance and might encourage more

research to be conducted in the future

It should be mentioned that the link between the factors

which may affect human performance and the resulting

human performance is complex and has many

interdependencies As a result even in a lab environment

it is not possible to control all the factors which may

affect the human performance

However with this research study it is confirmed that

noise has influence on human performance Objective

assessments of crew performance with regard to different

noise conditions is possible however subjective

assessment of performance (ie questionnaires) appeared

to give more consistent results with less effort

Therefore a wide range of data can be collected from

ships focusing on location based crew feedbacks and

associated noise levels frequencies etc then the link

between noise and human response to that noise can be

modelled

Developing technology will allow in future continuous

monitoring of crew performance as well as

environmental factors (noise vibrations, ship motions etc)

which would automatically generate the right real

operation data This data then can be utilised to model

human performance and comfort on ships The

developed models can be incorporated in ship design

addressing the outstanding concerns about human factor

integrated ship design

Future work about human performance analysis is

planned such as cross tabulations to see the links between

each subjective feedback and performance assessment

with regard to performance influencing factors

Moreover fuzzy multi expert and multi attributive

decision making to rank the best passages using all of the

aforementioned performance indicators together is also planned and currently in progress

7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the Maritime Faculty of Istanbul Technical University facilitating the ship simulators for this research; and of course all participants/volunteers for their interest on taking part in this experimental study

8 REFERENCES

1 Alberti PW (2001) The Pathophysiology of the

Ear, Occupational Exposure To Noise Evaluation, Prevention And Control, edited by Goelzer B, Hansen CH, Sehrndt GA, World Health Organisation (WHO)

2 Melamed S, Froom P (2002) The joint effect of

industrial noise exposure and job complexity on all-cause mortality - The CORDIS study Noise

& Health, 4(16) : 2331

3 Melamed S, Fried Y, Froom P (2004) The joint

effect of noise exposure and job complexity on distress and injury risk among men and women: The cardiovascular occupational Israel study Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 46(10): 10231032

4 Weston HC, Adams S (1932) The Effects of

Noise on Performance of Weavers Medical Research Council Industrial Health Research Board Report, No 65, 38-62

5 Broadbent DE (1954) Some effects of noise on

visual performance, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 6,1–5

6 Button DC, Behm DG, Holmes M, MacKinnon

SN (2004) Noise and muscle contraction affecting vigilance task performance, Occupational Ergonomics 4, 751–756

7 Harcum ER, Monti, PM (1973) Cognitions and

placebos in behavioral research on ambient noise, Perceptual and Motor Skills 37, 75–99

8 Harrison DW, Kelly, PL (1989) Age

differences in cardiovascular and cognitive performance under noise conditions, Perceptual and Motor Skills 69, 547–554

9 Strong R (1998) Task 1: Review of literature

and indication of current knowledge EU FP-4 Project REWORD

10 Rosselló J (1997) Selección para la percepción,

selección para la acción (selection for

11 Mackworth, N.H (1957) Vigilance The

Advancement of Science, 53, 389-393

12 IMO (1981) Code on Noise Levels on Board

Ships IMO Resolution A.468(XII), London

13 EC 2003, Minimum health and safety

requirements regarding the exposure of workers

to the risks arising from physical agents (noise),

(2003/10/EC)

14 Turan, O., Helvacioglu, I.H., Insel, M., Khalid,

H., Kurt, R.E (2010) Noise Exposure of Crew

on Board Ships and Comparative Study of

Applicable Standards, Ships and Offshore

Structures

15 Kurt, R E., Turan, O., Arslan, O., Khalid H.,

Clelland, D., Gut, N., (2010) An Experimental

Study to Investigate Effects of Noise on Human

Performance Onboard Ships, Human

Performance at Sea Conference, 16-18 June,

Glasgow, UK

9 AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Rafet Emek Kurt is PhD student at the University of

Strathclyde, Department of Naval Architecture and

Marine Engineering He is continuing his research in

Ship Design Operations and Human Factors Group

Osman Turan holds the current position of Deputy

Head of Department at the University of Strathclyde,

Department of Naval Architecture and Marine

Engineering He is leading numerous EU and UK funded

research projects as well as supervising the Ship Design

Operations and Human Factors Group

HUMAN FACTOR DESIGN IN UK DEFENCE

A J Springall, MoD Defence Engineering and Support, UK

SUMMARY

Human Factors in defence is all about delivering effective and available military capability The defence engineering enterprise needs to be able to identify and capture human factors issues to enable resources to be assigned for their management, solution development and implementation through Human Factors Integration The paper will discuss several areas where the author has developed Human Factors polices and guidance for Ship Accommodation Design, High Speed Craft Design and Ship Husbandry

1 INTRODUCTION

This paper is a personal view of how Human Factors

(HF) is addressed within the Warship Design domain It

is a summary of experience gained as the maritime HF

lead in the Sea Systems Group of the Directorate of

Safety and Engineering, Defence Equipment and

Support I'm responsible for whole ship design policies,

Human Factors, Human Performance at Sea, Husbandry

and Habitability and Naval Authority for Escape,

Evacuation and Rescue

My role is to support Projects, both new and in-service,

with standards; Defence Standards and Maritime

Acquisition Publications, advice and assurance I chair

the biennial community of interest Naval Equipment

Human Factors Integration Liaison Group for Project and

Contractor Personnel

HF in defence is all about delivering effective and

available military capability The defence engineering

enterprise needs to be able to identify and capture human

factors issues to enable resources to be assigned for their

management, solution development and implementation

through Human Factors Integration (HFI) The paper will

discuss HF in broad terms and areas where the author has

developed Human Factors polices and guidance for Ship

Accommodation Design, High Speed Craft Design, Ship

Husbandry and Habitability

1.1 USABILITY

A management challenge to deliver in a consistent and

effective manner The ISO ergonomics definition

(Brooke et al 1990) [1] is usage, user and contextually

oriented: “The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction

with which specified users can achieve specified goals in

a particular environment.”

I believe this is also the goal of HF when considered in

the context of organisations, teams and individuals

1.2 ATTITUDES AND THE PAST

Some engineers continue to characterise HF as just

common sense rather than the product of knowledge and

understanding In most cases common sense is found

only in hind sight As some would say, if it was easy it would be achieved without effort!

The product of HF engineering is sometimes not obvious

to the casual observer This arises from the need to experience it in the way it was intended to be delivered For complex systems only the intended user may be able

to discern the performance required

A look back at previous engineering cultures would struggle to identify any significant HF activities Projects such as this relied heavily on the input of Navy operational personnel, rather than HFI processes and specialists in human characteristics and needs

Although operational staff could contribute to the design effort, their role was reactive since they needed something tangible to review and they had little knowledge of the underlying science and engineering They found engineering drawings difficult to relate to as the level of detail presented was usually coarse and two dimensional, lacking any feel or function to which an operator could react and comment

Another drawback with this reactive approach was that the opinions of these staff were often based on the last ship they had served on, except that the accepted workarounds to known problems within the in-service

"solution" were rarely passed on as criticism The RN has

a robust "make do" culture that works at sea but often veils an objective opinion in the design environment Individuals could only relate to their own personal experience that Project staff would take as the view of the Service Often the next operational incumbent on the project would hold a completely opposite view! Consistency of advice was obviously difficult to manage with such ad hoc processes

Once at the production stage the operational staff could make valued judgements on real operating equipment, but there was now little opportunity to make changes however important they were Other obstacles to productive review occurred when new technology was introduced This rendered the operator's experience completely obsolete

The advent of computer aided design (CAD) has brought many benefits that now allow projects to use mock-ups

or synthetic environments where operators can give

valued timely comment and judgment

2 WHY WARSHIP HF DIFFERS FROM

COMMERCIAL SHIPPING

2.1 COMPLEXITY

Complexity arises from the huge scope of warship

specific systems that are designed, developed and

integrated into the platform’s systems See Annex A for a

list of Warship systems Warships are a system of

systems whose complexity must be managed to enable

humans to operate the ship’s systems and deliver military

capability

HF activities and analysis contribute to the management

of complex systems that enable effective command,

control and operation Human interactions with ship

systems need to be developed to enable the use of system

information that is relevant and understood by operators

in all operating scenarios including reversionary modes

Reversionary modes reflect the character of naval

systems that have mandated redundancy of essential

functions and services Delivery of information to system

users must be formatted and configured to reflect all role

specific operator skills, abilities and generic human

characteristics such as sight, hearing, touch and

anthropometric characteristics

2.2 SPECIAL OPERATIONS

Whilst human machine interface development is common

to all ship types, Warships operate many more systems

than commercial ships under more stressful operating

scenarios and environmental conditions Warships have

distinct operating states that reflect the threat level At

action states all personnel have a military role For

example Chefs may become gunners, fire-fighters,

damage control staff or stretcher bearers Training for

both roles is essential

2.3 SPECIAL TRAINING

Warships are not abandoned when attacked, they fight to

the end until commanded to leave Flag Officer Sea

Training is responsible for Operational Sea Training that

steps a ship through all anticipated operational scenarios

such as warfare, weapon engineering, marine

engineering, logistics, damage control and fire-fighting

This is in addition to shore based training that that is

delivered to groups and individuals according to their

roles and responsibilities

3 WHAT DOES THE HF INTEGRATION

(HFI) PROCESS SEEK TO ACHIEVE?

HFI is an organisational multidisciplinary activity that

addresses all HF issues in a consistent and deliberate

manner

Resources are allocated by management that enable the delivery of engineering design polices, processes and activities

These ensure that the human characteristics of the Target Audience are addressed within the solution that delivers cost effective military capability

4 HOW SHOULD HFI WORK WITHIN WITH WARSHIP DESIGN PROJECTS?

My view is that HF is, just like safety, everyone’s responsibility Whilst there are specialists such as ergonomists and psychologists to ensure that human characteristics and activities are correctly represented, there are opportunities for all project personnel to contribute to establishing and solving HF requirements This pan personnel approach is essential to ensure that all

HF aspects of a project are addressed at the appropriate level and that responsibility for achieving this is cascaded down to all concerned

Human centred design (ISO 9241-210:2010) [2] is frequently quoted as an indispensable approach that is used successfully for commercial product design and development Whilst it may be applied to equipment used

in Warship Projects I am not aware of the standard being applied to whole system of systems

Warship Projects must identify key HF areas early on to ensure that resources are made available to deliver HF requirements and policies Project managers must address the scope of HF activities to justify project resources including the use of specialists and engineers where appropriate

There is a management challenge to specify design requirements and standards before the solution is matured Typical problems have occurred where information is to be provided using a display screen in a specified compartment that is subsequently displaced to

an alternative location There have been instances of screens turning up in spaces where they are not anticipated, usually the ship’s bridge where night vision compatibility is not optional Navigators take great exception to the screens and insist they are modified to provide dimming facilities This change may involve the complete redesign of the display thus incurring additional costs and potential programme delay This situation and others like it need to be flagged by the project to ensure the HF issues are managed accordingly Issues may be managed through a HF Issues Log or Project Risk Register; the latter having wider circulation

Linked to the above is a need to operate an enduring HF issue capture process to feed into project management reviews to validate and resource their solution Whilst many minor issues tend to be less resource intensive they must be addressed before they become a problem in

terms of their transversal influence An example of this

occurred in the QEC Carrier Project where policy for

lifejacket stowage was made in haste only to be changed

once it was realised that escape routes would be

unacceptably blocked by personnel donning lifejackets

The solution was to bring lifejackets to personnel in the

muster stations with adequate space to don them The

change resulted in revising the stowage for 900

lifejackets!

Don’t forget the supplier base Why, because they also

need to be given HF requirements that are deployable for

all targeted suppliers For example you wouldn’t buy a

steel bolt with a specification to define how it is handled

by end users whereas you would expect one for a

portable compressor Equipment buyers must be aware of

HF requirements and how they are distributed to the

supplier base Buying hundreds of steel brackets that

cannot be painted with a 1" paint brush nor attached by

an air driven wrench can be very embarrassing Detail

about such innocuous items must capture design

specifications for features that support user, installation,

maintenance and training activities

5 WHAT HF PROCESSES ARE USED BY

PROJECTS?

HFs are an intrinsic part of System Engineering that

establishes a process to define how a system satisfies the

user requirements and constraints through the

development of functional characteristics that are

decomposed into system component descriptions and

interfaces that can be verified as satisfying the system

requirements System integration is a key activity that

establishes how the functional requirements and

characteristics have been implemented in the physical

solution Within the System Engineering process HF is a

methodology to ensure that the Human Component is

correctly represented and used appropriately The

following HF Activities and Analyses are indicative of

those suggested by JSP 912 [3], MAP 01-010[4] and Def

Stan 00-250 [5]

HF Activities - Warship Specific

 Manpower, Complementing and Accommodation

 Team Organisation

 General Arrangement, Operational Spaces

 Accommodation Spaces, Miscellaneous Spaces

 Personnel Movement and Material Handling

 Habitability and Internal Environment

 Maintenance and Support

HF Activities - Generic

 Understand the Context of Use

 Define the Organisation’s Characteristics

 Validate User Characteristics

 Develop Job/Role/Task Design

 Identify Training Needs

 Allocate which Functions are met by machine or People

 Design Human-Machine Interfaces

 Equipment designed for People

 Environment designed for People

 Develop Safe Systems

HF Analyses

 Task Analysis

 Workload Analysis

 Link Analysis

 Person-to-person Communications Analysis

 Person-to-machine Communications Analysis

 Allocation of Functions Analysis (between People and Equipment)

 Human Performance Analysis

 Human Reliability Analysis

5.1 REPRESENTING THE MILITARY HUMAN The following are approaches as to how military humans are represented to manage their use at all levels of the ship organisation

5.2 TARGET AUDIENCE DESCRIPTION (TAD) The TAD is compiled by Projects to reflect the type of people, represented by physical characteristics, knowledge and skills, which will be used within the solution throughout its life Once defined it is used by designers when selecting the most appropriate person to carry out a role required by the design solution Some solutions may require special skill adaptations that are identified through Training Need Analysis These special skills are costly to deploy since they increase the overall training burden Many of these expensive training needs can be replaced by systems developed to use just core skills As with many military systems, workload must be set at a sustainable level for all operational scenarios Good systems recognise the human characteristics that limit performance at individual, collective and organisational levels

A significant aspect of accommodating service personnel

is the large amount of anthropometric data that must be reviewed to ensure all shapes and sizes can perform all of their position tasks and personal functions Ships are sized generally for the 5th to 95th percentiles of the male and female population Figure 1 describes some of the range of human physical attributes

5.3 OVERARCHING PEOPLE-RELATED REQUIREMENTS (DEFSTAN 00-25 PART 1)[5] This is a set of requirements that can be tailored to suit specific projects They are deployed in the URD and SRD to ensure that solutions are developed with people

in mind The following list outlines the scope of the requirements

Figure 1 People Characteristics (DefStan 00-250 Part 3 Section 9) [5]

 Living Spaces (important for RN )

The following is a typical example of the requirements

8.4.10 Living Spaces

OPRR 85 The Solution Provider shall demonstrate that

all living spaces and associated sanitary facilities,

including those for ablution, excretion, and personal

equipment maintenance that comprise, or are modified

by the Solution are designed to meet functional and

people-related needs

The term Living Spaces shall include:

a) sleeping rooms;

b) dining rooms;

c) ablution, sanitation and toilet spaces

d) recreation rooms and areas;

e) access, passageways and lobbies;

f) physical training areas

6 HF IN THE NAVAL ARCHITECTURE

DOMAIN

Whilst system complexity is dominated by Combat,

Command and Control Systems the Platform that

delivers and supports them has many HF areas that are

the responsibility of Naval Architects These HF areas

comprise of personnel functions such as Husbandry,

Habitability, General Arrangement, Escape and

Evacuation and Performance at Sea

6.1 SHIP HUSBANDRY

Ship Husbandry is an unusual term in that it implies that

something in the ship needs to be cared for and

nourished It is not about caring for Navy personnel

directly, that is a function of the Executive Officer and

the Ship's medic, but the activity does benefit the Ship's

Staff Ships Husbandry is all about maintaining the

condition of the common areas within the ship and its

weather decks It includes the maintenance of paint

coatings, deck fittings, vents, jalousies, scuppers,

stantions, doors and their furniture, deck coatings, vent

filters and many other important parts of the ships

infrastructure that need attention whilst away from

homeport The most onerous of these Husbandry

activities is the cleaning of the ship's estate by Junior

Rates The most common cleaning activity is the washing

and rinsing of floor coverings that are found throughout

the ship The cleaning activity is not helped by the

material of the deck coverings that must be manufactured

to emit low smoke and toxins in the event of a fire The

resultant "drudgery" is well known as a factor

influencing the well being of junior staff that are known

to resign early to escape the hard regime

So where is the HF in Husbandry? It’s mostly about

materials that are fit for purpose and equipment that

requires little or no maintenance Its sounds simple but

because of the quantity of these items around the ship

any shortfalls impact directly on Ship's Staff workload

Typical "sore thumb" areas are watertight door catches

that wear prematurely and deck coverings that wear out

and require more cleaning effort As ever attention to

detail pays handsomely!

6.2 HABITABILITY

Habitability is a broad term that captures the quality of

the living experience It’s about the homely aspects for

all on board where comfort, nourishment and relaxation

are available when duties cease Again there are special

measures to limit the effects of fire and smoke for all the

materials used such as mattresses, bed linen, curtains and

cushions Living accommodation is always a topic of

conversation for ship's staff, after all it’s their home for 6

months or more The pressure to manage the cost of

accommodating all on-board and the direct influence it

has on the initial and through life cost of the ship (UPC

and Salaries) makes for a difficult compromise Each

Project must balance the accommodation standard with the attitudes and expectations of young staff that expect more and the through life and build cost

6.3 GENERAL ARRANGEMENT

The General Arrangement is the product of the whole ship design process In the Concept Phase the design is based on space and area demands that are calculated from similar ships Initially there is no need for a General Arrangement since costing can be accomplished using parametric and regression data to arrive at an initial estimate The Project may create many design cases to determine cost drivers for given capabilities Once the cost/capability argument is satisfied a General Arrangement can be created to reflect the equipment decisions and initial numbers of personnel to be accommodated Now we can talk in HF! There is potentially everything to consider and every requirement

to satisfy

The General arrangement is a means to validate potential solutions by showing that all equipment and personnel that are to be housed have an allocation of space and are positioned correctly within it It cannot validate spaces where human activities occur without more detailed studies but an assessment of escape following fire or floods can be made In terms of arriving at manpower numbers the driving activity is damage control and fire fighting where the ship relies on manpower and equipment to avoid total loss The ever present demand

to reduced manpower must be achieved by reducing the manpower burden required for the damage control and fire fighting system Manpower can be reduced by increasing automation of the systems, this leads to more system complexity at the expense of recoverability Whilst the cost of automation can balanced by the manpower savings there appears to be a state at which overall survivability is plateaus whilst costs increase 6.4 ESCAPE AND EVACUATION

This area is rich in HF requirements, after all we are trying to leave a ship that can no longer sustain life Effective escape requires information, training and robust systems to ensure that when the time comes the ship's staff are protected until they reach a place of safety There are ship systems that contribute to escape and equipment designed specifically for evacuation The ship designer's main concern is about providing useful escape routes to the upper decks These can conflict with other requirements such as security where escape may be impeded Human characteristics are used in escape analyses to determine escape times These were derived

by trials on the DRIU and HMS BRISTOL Training for escape is also a requirement that takes place ashore and on-board during Officer Sea Training

6.5 SHIP ACCOMMODATION DESIGN

Warship accommodation for junior ratings has

progressed from 50 man messes to 6 man messes within

the last 35 years For most of this time the then guidance

for accommodation, NES 107, was never fully met by

successive warship projects The principle reason being

that the pressure to deliver warships to budget, something

never really delivered but that’s another story, was

managed by lowering the junior rate accommodation

standard that significantly influenced the size of the ship

and thereby its overall cost

The old standard was very prescriptive, with floor areas

defined for each rank, none of which was attributable to

personal needs Projects that moved away from the

standard found that area decisions were made in the

absence of any issues that would arise as a consequence

such as not enough room to change in the mess Another

factor was the practice of planning to operate new

warship classes with "reduced manning" again to satisfy

budgetary targets This approach resulted in ships being

heavily modified once at sea to provide enough

accommodation for the numbers actually needed

onboard

Having absorbed this lamentable reality I set about

defining a functional approach to warship

accommodation that would enable future projects to

justify accommodation standards based on space

allocation derived from living activities such as dressing,

washing and sleeping The approach was set around four

main functions of protect, sustain, health and develop

Each function was assigned derived requirements that all

solutions would deliver such as heating, ventilation,

lighting and access

The accommodation design process follows the

CADMID cycle as defined in Part 1, whilst Part 2

contains the functional areas and how they are satisfied

6.6 HUMAN PERFORMANCE AT SEA

Traditionally this topic focused on motion induced

interrupts (MII) to body stability and motion induced

sickness (MIS) The subjects are considered by the

ABCD Group of international navies Recent research by

the Institute of Naval Medicine on behalf of the MOD

has studied the performance of RN personnel at sea with

a diary completed each day to record the effects of ship

motion on performance

6.7 WHOLE BODY VIBRATION

Since the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations

(COVAWR) was published in 2005 I have been alerting

projects to the fact that it specifically includes military

personnel unlike other safety legislation that usually

exempts them The COVAWR has proved to be a

blessing in disguise for military personnel for two

reasons Firstly the health monitoring activities are useful for personnel that experience high and sustained exposures, predominately in high speed craft, for identifying acute or accumulative injuries before they can cause disabling permanent conditions The other reason

is enhanced military capability brought about by newly introduced body conditioning exercises that enhance individual's abilities to withstand shock and vibration exposure and advanced coxswain training to minimise vibration exposure through route selection, throttle and helm control In the future advanced hull forms will be introduced to further reduce shock and vibration exposure My contribution to this area is to research the benefit of posture for coxswains and passengers The research will explore a range of seat back and base configurations to minimise exposure whilst being able to perform command and control functions Exemplar seats that can be configured to provide a range of postures shall be integrated with typical controls and instrumentation to determine optimal seat back and base configurations The results will provide future high speed craft projects a means to identify optimal seating configurations that fully integrate with the crafts cockpit location and structures

7 REFERENCES

1 Brooke J, Bevan N, Brigham F, Harker S, Youmans D (1990) Usability statements and standardisation - work in progress in ISO In: Human Computer Interaction - INTERACT'90, D Diaper et al (ed), Elsevier

2 ISO 9241-210:2010 Ergonomics of human-system interaction Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems

3 JSP 912 “Human Factors Integration for Defence Systems”

4 Maritime Acquisition Publication No 01-010 Human Factors Integration (Hfi) Management Guide

5 Defence Standard 00-250, Human Factors for Designers of Systems Parts 0 – 4

8

Sense

Air Search Radar

Surface Search Radar

Towed Array

Fire Control Radar

Ballistic Missile Defence Radar

Air and Missile Defence Radar

Bow Array

Sonobouys

ES Systems

EO/IR Systems

Identification Systems (IFF, etc)

Off-board Sensors (UAV, etc)

Sensor Management

Command and Control

Combat Control

Track Management Identification Tactical Planning Threat Evaluation Weapon Assignment Off-board Vehicle Control Resource Management Readiness Assessment Communications Engage

Weapon System Power

Weapon System Cooling

Cargo Handling System

Aircraft Handling Servicing and Stowage

Aircraft Stowage & Servicing

Aircraft Launching Systems

Aircraft Recovery Systems

Aircraft Elevators

9 ANNEX B – HERE IS A USEFUL CHECKLIST TO REVEAL POTENTIAL HF ISSUES

All systems or products can be:

Specified by people Researched by people Used by people Interrogated by people Abused by people Damaged by people Relied on by people Made by people Assembled by people Moved by people

Bought by people Stored by people Designed by people Installed by people Inspected by people Looked at by people Commissioned by people Maintained by people

Adjusted by people Modified by people Replaced by people Removed by people Destroyed by people Painted by people Appreciated by people!

Have you considered all of these use cases?

MANNING ORIENTATED DESIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS

W M Post, TNO Human Factors, Netherlands

SUMMARY

All navies, when taking initiative to build a new platform, have difficulties with determining in an early phase the number of people that are needed to sail the planned ship How do you approach this problem? How can you reduce the complexity of it? How do you reach a cost-effective solution? How do you coordinate all the stakeholders and experts involved in this process?

At TNO, we have reflected on a dozen of human centred design projects for the Dutch Defence Materiel Organization (DMO) We have unified many years of developed knowledge, methodologies and tools in one Manning Centred Design framework, aimed at reducing the complexity of such design problems, managing the risks involved, and capturing the applied knowledge and experiences for later use In this paper, the framework will be explained and illustrated by two projects: the development of the Offshore Patrol Vessel and the Submarine Life Extension Program

1 INTRODUCTION

The Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN), and since 2005,

the Dutch Defence Materiel Organization (DMO), have

extensively applied Human Factors knowledge in the

development of almost all their navy platforms in the

past four decades This knowledge application hasn’t

been restricted to ship design Human Factors research

has contributed also in addressing new generic design

issues, by developing new knowledge, tools and

methodologies to manage these issues Fig 1 shows a

dozen of RNLN platforms, developed since 1970,

together with new Human Factors developments

The RNLN/DMO usually asks the Dutch research organization TNO to support them with this work For example, forty years ago, design focused on issues such

as usability and reliability As a reaction, we at TNO started new research on subjects such as ergonomics (i.e., norms) and human centred design (i.e., design theory) And we developed new design tools and techniques such

as mock-ups and how to use them to evaluate the usability and reliability of design solutions Through ongoing reflection on our design approach, further development of our human factors knowledge base, and expansion of our facilities, our approach has become better each design project

Hydrography Platform

Air Defence & Command Frigate

Landing Platform Dock 2

Patrol Vessel Joint Support Ship

GW/S/L-frigates

Upkeep AlkmaarClass

Upkeep WalrusClass

Task Analysis and Job Design

Manning Centered Design

Full Mock-ups

Virtual environments Human Systems Integration

Graphical Link Analysis Simulation models

2010

CAD

Co-Creation

Design Products

Figure 1: Recent history of human factors design for the RNLN / DMO

In the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties, there was a

development from full 1:1 scale wooden mockups, via

the introduction of 3D design tools such as CAD

(Computer Aided Design) to Virtual Environment, and

even hybrid environments (the integration of tactile

immersion of a wooden mockup and visual immersion in

Virtual Environment) in the mid Nineties Major design

issues shifted from reliability and usability of the design

concepts to the reduction of speed and cost of the design

process, among others related to time consumption and

inflexibility of wooden mockups Fig 2 shows the

mockup of the Walrus Class Command Center and how

it has been realized; Fig 3 shows the ADC Frigate

Command Center and mockup and how it is realized

Fig 2: Command center of the Walrus Class Submarine

Upper picture, the 1:1 scale wooden mockup, in 1980

Lower picture, how it is currently operational

In the Nineties, new tools and techniques such as the

Human Systems Integration approach, and Tasks

Analysis and Job Design techniques were introduced, as

well as simulation models for crew performance This

was due to a shift of focus to complexity and risk

management, which required more knowledge on how to

reduce manning in a well-founded way The

Hydrographic Vessel and the Alkmaar Class manning

reduction are one of the example projects at that time

In the past decade, we started applying digital manikins,

to assess the human perspective in an early phase, for

example during designing the Joint Operations Room of

the Landing Platform Dock II "Johan de Witt"(see fig 4)

Fig 3: The command center of the Air Defence & Command Frigate Upper picture, the 1:1 scale wooden mockup under evaluation, in 1997 Lower picture, how it has been realized

Fig 4: Joint Operations Room of Landing Platform Dock

II Upper picture: digital manikins Lower picture, the 1:1 scale wooden mockup It has been realized accordingly

Operational contexts

Organizational Structures

Systems Tasks & Work

processes

Architectures Design

Workspaces

Work stations

Collaborative relations

Manning

Design Choices

Role Plan

Summarized, through the past decades, we have been

continuously extending and improving this design

knowledge, methodologies and tools As must be clear

from the number of platforms and research programs we

have been involved in, TNO maintains a strong customer

intimacy with the RNLN and DMO Four decades of

involvement has resulted in a comprehensive design

approach with a number of essential features First of all,

our approach is systematic, integral and iterative, and

includes four basic phases: functional specification,

conceptual design and detailed design Second, we

follow a collaborative design approach: in a rather small

project team, involving operational users, (weapon)

technical experts, platform designers and logistics

experts, we maintain an open, cohesive atmosphere for

creativity as well as efficacy, with a minimum of

overhead and a maximum of shared project awareness

Third, we contribute our own expertise: a wide spectrum

of high quality human factors knowledge And fourth, we

effectively and efficiently facilitate design and evaluation

with an extensive set of techniques and tools

2 MANNING CENTRED DESIGN

2.1 THE FRAMEWORK

Recently, we started integrating all the methods, tools

and techniques we are using in one framework, called

Manning Centred Design [1],[2]

 At the functional level, the starting points and constraints for the new platform are determined, in line with the formulated strategic ambition These constraints are: the type of missions the platform will

be assigned to, and consequently the maritime tasks that need to be performed; the type of situations in which the ship is expected to operate; and the variety

of scenarios it should manage

 At the conceptual level, the functional constraints are transferred into the organizational structure and the concept of operation at the one hand, and into the architectures and systems at the other hand

 At the detailed design level, the conceptual design is further developed by assigning people and their working relationships, and the required resources together with their interconnection, in the form of the lay-out of the working environment and the design of the individual work stations

Each level of the methodology has its impact on effectiveness and lifecycle costs

The framework is meant for a number of aspects:

 It reduces complexity by transferring design problems into well-organized sub-problems, by ensuring an integrated approach, by supporting virtual every step

of the design process, and through one framework, by allowing various parties to contribute jointly

Operational contexts

Organizational Structures

Systems Tasks & Work

processes

Architectures Design

Workspaces

Work stations

Collaborative relations

Manning

Design Choices

Role Plan

The fram  It helps managing risk, by facilitating an efficient levFigure 5: Framework for Manning Orientated Design design process, by providing the arguments for design

decisions and revealing consequences of design

alternatives, by supporting cost-effectiveness

assessment, and by identifying areas of uncertainty

 It supports design knowledge management, by

provides a well-documented, unambiguous method,

by providing insight into the relationship between

different design aspects, and by anchoring many

existing and new tools for design and evaluation

In section 3 and 4, we will illustrate this approach using

two platform design projects: the Offshore Patrol Vessel

and the Submarine Life Extension Program

2.2 DUTCH DESIGN

An important difference between the Dutch and foreign

approaches has to do with how the Dutch Defence

Materiel Organization (DMO) is organized DMO has its

own ship design capability, with ship builders, technical

engineers and human factors engineers who specify new

platforms, ordered by the Chief of the Defence Staff

(CDS), to much more detail than foreign navies This

supports Logistics in formulating procurements in much

more detail, resulting in products that are much closer to

what the RNLN, one of the customers of DMO, really

wants Another important difference is TNO’s strong

customer intimacy with DMO, because of which Human

Factors has become an integral part of each new platform

program

In contrast, even in the US and the UK, Human Factors is

not an integral part of a new platform program per se

That is not to say that Human Factors knowledge is

lacking in the US and UK On the contrary: the Human

Systems Integration approach exists for many years, and

has resulted in a methodologies such as MANPRINT, 25

years ago [3] MANPRINT has prevented many pour

procurements and saved billions of dollars Cases with

over 1000% of return of investment are no incidents [4]

Similar approaches are currently still applied [5] A

problem is that the initiative to take Human Factors into

account in designing a new platform does not necessarily

originate from the platform program manager In the US,

a platform program manager should formally only

consider Human Factors This initiative must come from

human factors engineers As a consequence,

opportunities for proper specification are often missed

3 THE OPV CASE

3.1 THE PROJECT

Half a decade ago, the Royal Netherlands Navy started

the development of four patrol vessels, for which high

demands were set on efficiency and effectiveness, and

that had to have a restricted manning of 50 functionaries

The necessary high level of mechanization, automation,

and integration was given expression into a closer link

between the traditionally separated operational rooms

Compared to working on board a frigate, the way of working in these rooms had to undergo significant changes As a baseline, overhead and redundancy had to

be reduced to a minimum

These developments meant also a new challenge for the lay-out and design of the operational rooms TNO Human Factors was asked to accept that challenge Goal was to develop a flexible, functional and cost-effective lay-out and design of both the operations rooms and the workstation, tested on ergonomic and human factors related aspects Four rooms were distinguished: the navigation bridge, the command information centre, the briefing room and the technical office

The project was carried out according to the design method, described above, in close cooperation with representatives of the navy The Human Factors Engineering Team consisted of Human factors experts, equipment specialists, representatives of the future users (operational and technical) and Combat Management System/network specialist Occasionally, other subject matter experts were invited on relevant phases during the project, such as on sensor/weapon/communications The design sessions were intensive: four days in two weeks plenary sessions, and take-home work, sufficient to fill the remaining days for most of them This battle rhythm worked well We soon grew from a group of experts to a team of experts to an expert team Within half a year, we completed the concept of operations (CONOPS) and the conceptual design of the operational spaces

Aspects that were dealt with were: how to distribute the functions over the rooms; which working positions need

to be distinguished; what information facilities are required; which demands are to be made for the design of the workstations; and how to position these workstations

in the rooms for optimal corporation, and minimizing negative effects of ship movements Important design decisions were the location of the command information centre with respect to the navigation bridge and whether

to bring these rooms physically together

The design method led to the introduction of the command bridge An inventory of requirements was made for each work position in this command bridge, and assessed whether the design and layout fulfilled those requirements The resulting 2D design was next further elaborated into a 3D model, and by using a Virtual Environment, evaluated, on the aspect of collaboration and on lines of sight, both within the room

as well as outside 3D modelling techniques and stereoscopic presentation allow us to immerse the future users and decision makers in a relatively inexpensive and more flexible model of the future environment Full scale mock-ups are still used to evaluate the ergonomic features of individual workplaces

3.2 FRAMEWORK FIT

In retrospect, we will show the fit with the Manning

Centred design Framework The project was started at

the functional level, using the ambition of 50 crew

members as the most important constraint The type of

missions were defined (all low violence, such as coast

guard, station ship Caribbean, expeditionary) as well as

maritime functions (e.g., enforcement, protection, search

and rescue, humanitarian support, maritime interdiction,

etc.) and the scenario’s (employable worldwide, all

weather, up to three weeks without replenishment)

At the conceptual level, the organizational structure and

the concept of operations (CONOPS) were developed,

with capabilities of architectures and systems in mind

For example, it was decided to develop multipurpose

workstations, allowing a much more flexible CONOPS

Also, in finding a way to reduce overhead, a link analysis

was carried out This revealed communication overhead

between navigation bridge and operations room This led

to the idea of a combined bridge and operations room

Moreover, in low violence missions, such as fisheries

patrols, the officer of the watch could act as the

operations room manager, taking over the role of the

Principal Warfare Officer Further, the surface and air

picture operator could potentially be combined So, by

considering structure, CONOPS, architecture and

systems, a reduction could potentially be realized

At the detailed level, the collaborative relations were

considered and the individual jobs were designed The

concepts of adaptive teams and adaptive automation were

worked out here Finally, the lay-out of the command

bridge and the design of the individual workstations were

put on the agenda, aiming at optimal shared situation and

team awareness and individual performance (see fig 6)

The problem of lack of redundancy was especially

addressed here We recognized risk of sea sickness (as

well as diminished performance due to ship motions) and

looked for ways to minimize it This resulted in “an

operations room with a view”: the layout of the

command bridge and the workstations design were such

that a view on the horizon was realized In addition,

additional windows were placed around the room, and a

separate research project was started with the concept of

an artificial horizon, integrated in the workstations [6]

This study shows that an artificial horizon can diminish

sea sickness with by factor two to four! It can also be

concluded that in our command bridge, a view at the real

horizon will have that effect as well

3.3 IMPACT

The design has been presented to the navy at several

points in times during the project This was the more

important since the innovative character of both the

direct link between navigation bridge and command

information centre, and the outside view from within the

command information centre After initial hesitations, the

command bridge became widely accepted by the RNLN

More recently, we have extensively tested both the

command bridge lay-out and the CONOPS in a simulated command bridge at TNO with two scenarios and two command centre teams of seven staff members (see figure 7) The five simulation controllers, six observers, and eight experimentation leaders could together conclude that the command bridge concept functions adequately In the beginning of 2011, the first OPV has been delivered It has been estimated by the DMO that a combination of such TNO studies for the OPV have importantly contributed to a reduction of 20 to 25 crew members A rule of thumb is that manning accounts for 50% of the total cost Over a conservative lifetime of 20 years, 50 Million Euro is saved per ship Four ships are built

Figure 6: Impressions of the OPV command bridge and individual workstations

Figure 7: The OPV crew at TNO during an experimental evaluation of the command bridge layout and the CONOPS

4 THE WALRUS LIFE EXTENSION CASE

The Walrus Class consists of four diesel electric

submarines with a crew of 50 persons, which sail with an

unmanned engine room It was ordered in 1978 and the

first one was operational in 1990 The Human Factors

aspects were addressed at that time by TNO A full scale

wooden mock-up of the command centre and the engine

room was made to support evaluation of the lay-out of

the rooms, the design of the workplaces and

maintainability To give an example of the impact of that

work, it was found that there wasn’t enough space in the

engine room for maintenance As a result, the hull was

lengthened on the drawing table shortly before it was

built

A Life Extension Program is planned to start in 2012, to

guarantee this capacity at least until 2025 Because of

the specific character of the Life Extension Program, the

Program Manager has appealed to the Dutch Underwater

Knowledge Centre (DUKC) DUKC is a working group

supported by the Netherlands Defence Manufacturers

Association (NIDV), aiming at maintaining this specific

domain knowledge Within DUKC, a partnership was

initiated that offered to support a conceptual study on

engineering work In this partnership, TNO Human

Factors had the following responsibilities: the design of

the physical lay-out of the command centre and

individual work stations, and new interface concepts for

the new combat management system Guardion The

project was awarded and started mid 2009, under the

name WESP (Walrus Engineering Support Project)

Other essential WESP consortium partners were

IMTECH, NEVESBU, TECNOVIA and NEDINSCO

Again a Human Factors Engineering (HFE) Team was

formed consisting of Human Factors experts of TNO and

defence functionaries (equipment specialists,

representatives of the future users, CMS specialists, and

platform maintainers) Other subject matter experts were

invited only occasionally, when needed In the next

subsections, we will describe how we approached this

project with this team, following the framework of

section 2

4.2 FUNCTIONAL LEVEL

Initially, it was expected that the Life Extension Program

would have minimum impact on the command centre

since there is hardly space to make important changes

Only an ergonomic improvement of the workstations was

demanded However, the Program Manager encouraged

the HFE Team to make an analysis of the consequences

of a changing operational context and the system

adaptations for the way of working in the operations

room When a new CONOPS is needed, new

requirements for the physical space would probably arise

as well

In three design workshops, the Human Factors

Engineering Team handled the functional level An

important change of operational context was already identified in earlier studies by the RNLN, DMO and TNO: due to the end of the Cold War, the submarines need to operate less often in deep waters, but more often

in shallow waters, and they will work less often in isolation, but more often within a NEC environment We continued our analysis with defining ten scenarios covering the new situation (Transit, Periscope depth, Deep underwater, etc.), and with identifying the major functions (see fig 7)

4.3 CONCEPTUAL LEVEL Again in three design workshops, the HFE Team went through the conceptual phase In the first design work shop, we started with mapping out the new systems requirements and the new operational concept The Life Extension Program provides an opportunity to replace the current, almost outdated, Combat Management System by Guardion, a CMS developed by DMO’s own software house CAMS Force Vision (Centre for Automation of Mission Critical Systems) Guardion enables better integration, better man-machine interaction, and better flexibility But also the new operational context requires important system adaptations The main ones are:

• The introduction of a non-hull penetrating optical electronic mast, which makes the outside picture available for potentially all operators, in stead of the PWO or CO who only using a periscope

• The introduction of a Warship Electronic Chart Display, replacing the paper navigation charts Among other things, WECDIS facilitates travel planning and changes the task of the officer from active navigation into monitoring

• The introduction of SATCOM, to improve communication within a task group and NEC organization It is expected that the crew needs to process much more information

In the next workshop, the set of operators was established and a link analysis was carried out for all ten scenarios, taking the new systems into mind This resulted in a graphical representation of the CONOPS Fig 8 shows this graphical representation for the periscope depth scenario It shows the relation between the operators, where thicker lines indicate stronger relationships

In the third design workshop, these graphically represented CONOPS were used to sketch by the Human Factors Engineering Team three alternatives for the new layout The principles for the three differed widely, to clarify the essential requirements and wishes for the final draft

Periscoop diepte,

Complexe aanval

WN WOP ACCO

SOP2

STL SOP1

PtP voice Zicht op Dichtbij / Overleg Middelen delen

WC

AC

Weapon Deployment

RG DOF

SC PROP

Maneuver

Figure 8: Upper figure, the identified maritime tasks

Lower figure, a graphical representation of the concept of

operation for the scenario “Periscope Depth” (in Dutch)

The thickness of the lines connecting operators

represents the strength of the relationship

 The starting point for the first alternative, the

conventional concept, was to minimize changes to the

existing layout

 The starting point for the second alternative, the

revolutionary concept, was to release as much as

possible all current requirements, even the

dimensions of space The design of this alternative

was not so much an end in itself but a means for

thinking “out-of-the-hull”, so to come to an idealistic

command center

 The motto for the third alternative, the evolutionary

concept, was to make a realistic, qualitative

improvement compared to the conventional design,

inspired by the revolutionary design

The conceptual phase was concluded with a separate

evaluation session The first and the third alternative

were evaluated by independent user experts, and their

technical and financial feasibility were assessed by other

subject matter experts, including all partners of the

WESP consortium As for the conventional design

proposal, it was assessed as a good step forward for the

individual operator to achieve with limited additional costs, risks and time Regarding the evolutionary design proposal, it is optimally designed for the new CONOPS and it is a good step forward compared to the conventional design proposal However, the costs are higher, and the risks and renovation time are increased It was estimates that the additional costs are advantageous compared to the obtained operational and functional value Budgetary constraints and the acceptance level of risk led the Program Manager to choose for a combination of both This is worked out next

4.4 DETAILED LEVEL

At the detailed level, again three design workshops with the Human Factors Engineering Team were carried out One workshop was focusing on the layout of the operations room For optimal team performance, shared situation awareness was supported by introducing overview screens, and direct communication was supported by strongly considering the lines of sight during positioning the individual operators Another design workshop was focused on detailing the individual workstations Much effort was put in ergonomics This was a hard job, since there was hardly space to do it right

A particular constraint was an existing shock frame in which the new workstations had to be replaced In fig 9, you can still sea some ribbons of the shock frame Further, the workstations are designed in a way that neighboring screens can easily be looked at and operators can share their work between neighbors They are also able to take over monitoring tasks under certain circumstances and as a consequence, they can scale down and up easily, allowing staff to relax whenever possible

In a third workshop, special aspects were designed, such

as a WECDIS workstation and a workstation for the Commanding Officer In addition, during all three workshops, attention has been paid to designing the new work environment in such a way that more space is experienced and less discomfort

4.5 IMPACT The Submarine Life Extension Program doesn’t have a crew reduction target It is known, however, that submarine personnel have a lower retention compared to personnel of other platforms Lower retention leads to higher training costs and even a danger of under-staffing,

at the expense of the deployability of platforms This more comfortable work environment contributes to higher retention Further, the layout is optimally suited for the new CONOPS, which is advantageous for reducing overhead Besides the ergonomic design of high quality work placements, which eases individual workload, effort is also spent on enabling an adaptable manning due to the scalability aspect The new layout has been subjectively evaluated as well on aspects such

as efficiency, collaboration, review, flexible deployment, comfort and endurance, and was rated significantly higher than the current lay-out (on average, 8.0 vs 6.6)

5 CONCLUSIONS

In the past half century, there has been a continuous

development of design knowledge, tools and techniques,

aimed at increasing Human Factors impact, and this will

go on in the future Recently, TNO has started to bring its

applied knowledge together in one overall framework

We have demonstrated that the framework supports well

in grasping the complexity of manning related projects It

helps to maintain an overview of the various design

aspects and it provides guidance to take the right steps

during a design process Two successful applications

show considerable impact with this approach

The approach should not be regarded as a guarantee for a

positive achievement For success, a well performing

Human Factors Engineering Team is required, as well as

problem specific creativity combined with solid

evaluation No less important is to treat Human Factors

Engineering as an essential element in the early phases of

a procurement program, supporting the specification of

what the customer should want, as opposed to a free

interpretation by industry of what is required To cite

Booher [3] “Although numerous specific examples of

positive human factors influence can be cited, it is fair to

conclude that past attempts to incorporate human factors

as a primary consideration in government policy for the

procurement or regulation of the nation’s technology

have been marginal at best Human factors continued in

the late 1990s to be viewed as a contributor to or

supporter of design and operations that had not yet

reached an equal footing with engineering or operations

disciplines.” Hopefully, more positive human factors

influence will be cited, and an equal footing will be

reached sooner, as a result of the explanation of our

framework and the presented illustrations of Dutch

Design

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank DMO, the RNLN, the

members of the WESP consortium: IMTECH,

NEVESBU, TECNOVIA and NEDINSCO, and all

members of the Human Factors Engineering Teams for

their contribution in the reported design projects, and

especially Submarine Life Extension Program Manager

Colonel Pim Rozendaal for his valuable comments on an

earlier version of this paper

7 REFERENCES

1 CORNELISSE, M., VAN HATTEM, N.M &

PUNTE, P.A.J ‘Ontwerp en Evaluatieraamwerk Bemanningsmodellen: ontwikkeling en evaluatie [Design and Evaluation Framework Manning Models: development and

Evaluation]’, TNO-report TNO-DV 2008 B200,

2010

2 VAN DER BROEK, J., ‘Eindrapport

Programma Bemanningsmodellen’, TNO-report

TNO-DV 2010 E117, 2010

3 BOOHER, H, R., ‘Handbook of Human System

Integration’ John Wiley & Sons, 2003

4 SKELTON, I., ‘Statement in Congress, October

1’, Congressional Record House

(H8269-H8271), 1997

5 NOVAK, B., KIJORA, C., MALONE, T.,

LOCKETT-REYNOLDS, J & WILSON, D.,

‘U.S Department of Homeland Security Human Systems Integration applied to U.S Coast Guard

Surface Asset Acquisitions’ In: Proceedings of

the International Conference on Human Performance at Sea HPAS 2010, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 16th-18th June 2010

6 HOUBEN, M.M.J & BOS, J.E., ‘Reduced

seasickness by an artificial 3d earth-fixed visual

reference’, In: Proceedings of the International

Conference on Human Performance at Sea HPAS 2010, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 16th-18th

June 2010

8 AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHY Wilfried Post holds the current position of senior

research scientist at TNO Human Factors He performs basic as well as applied research on the cognitive, social and organizational aspects of work The topics of the projects he has led include (distributed) team performance, control organizations, crisis management, naval and maritime crews experimental research, in the laboratory as well as at sea, and projects on the design of naval and maritime concepts of operations and operational spaces