The Psychology of Marine Engineering

The risk of human error is an ever present danger in the maritime environment effecting sectors such as commercial shipping, the cruise line industry, offshore oil and gas as well as maritime defence and protection services (Navy and Coast Guard). More than 90% of collisions, over 80% of tanker accidents, 79% of towing vessel groundings and 75% of fires and explosions have been attributed to human error. All of these events can have a monumental impact on a maritime organisation’s operational capability and ability to conduct the required missions. Not least is the personal injury, disability or the tragic loss of life that can be caused by human error-related accidents, along with the costs associated with such incidents; which can be staggering. But how often do we blame the user unnecessarily when in fact systems are frequently designed in such a way that does not allow humans to successfully carry out their required tasks?

The implementation of a Human Factors Engineering (HFE) programme during the engineering design process can have a profound effect in reducing the likelihood of human error. But what do we mean by HFE? Chris Parker, Senior Human Factors Engineer at BMT Designers & Planners defines HFE and highlights the benefits to such an approach. By focusing on human considerations when designing any equipment, systems and facilities with which humans interface or interact, can not only improve operational efficiency but most importantly, reduce the health and safety risks of its employees.

Human Factors Engineering (HFE), in the context of maritime accidents, is incredibly important. The solution to mitigate and address these errors is the application of HFE principles. Such an approach can reduce and even eliminate opportunities for human error and alleviate the associated risks.

HFE is tied to the systems engineering process whereby research on human beings’ capabilities and limitations, psychological, physiological and social, is applied to traditional engineering design in order to better match the interface between the individual user and the systems that they interact with. The ultimate goal of HFE is to improve human performance and to get the most out of the end user while reducing the opportunities for error. Notably, as the likelihood or resulting consequences of human error is lessened the safety risk also diminishes.

In the maritime environment, increasingly complex technology is proliferating and has started to overtake the capabilities of the end user. As a result the interface between the end user and the system has become critical. It’s vital that the interface is optimised and that expectations about how a system works and how a system will behave absolutely matches the mental model of the individual. Any kind of mismatch will lead to opportunities for error and reduction in performance, creating potential accidents and incidents which in turn may translate into significant remedial and compensation costs. For this reason BMT Designers & Planners advocates applying HFE principles right from the concept design stage where it will have greatest impact on both performance and potential cost.

Throughout the design’s development HFE principles should be used to test, evaluate and validate that the system is suitable for the intended end user. If a design is developed without due consideration of the capabilities and limitations of the end user it may well render that design unusable, inefficient or at worse dangerous. No one will claim to produce an engineering design which deliberately puts the end user in any danger or creates an opportunity for error – but that doesn’t stop it happening. It is important to understand that HFE is a dedicated discipline. The fact is, just because someone has been at sea for ten years and is now designing systems for ships, does not mean they will sufficiently and adequately apply human factors principles. It is not simply the application of common sense or an automatic adjunct to another engineering discipline. Human Factors Engineers, who are highly trained and educated in psychology and its application to engineering, are constantly mitigating against the fact that there are innate aspects of human behaviour, such as the tendency for human beings to take what they perceive to be the quickest and most familiar route, irrespective of what ‘common sense’ might tell them under normal conditions, and engineers must design to consider this fact.

While early HFE involvement in design is preferable it is not to say that human factors principles can’t be implemented after a system has already been designed or is already operational. When a system has already been designed and incident or accident data is available with risks or hazards identified, Human Factors Engineers can analyse this to identify the root cause of the problem and propose mitigating actions. The benefit of a post-design investigation is that there is a physical thing to assess rather than a conceptual system. It also means that there is something physical to work with, users can be put into scenarios in a physical environment, the actual operating environment and data can be collected in a way which is tremendously valuable.

In broad terms there are four stages in the HFE process. At the outset HFE principles are deployed at the design stage to minimise errors, or opportunities for errors. Then, because it is not always possible to affect design and completely eliminate the opportunity for error, we look to design to mitigate the consequences of error and reduce the impact of those consequences. The next stage is to warn the individual of a potential error that may occur and perhaps write a procedure to prevent error and finally, the last thing would be to train to prevent the error. While training is important in the roll out of systems and when introducing an operator and user to a system, it should not be the primary focus in ensuring that a system and intended user match sufficiently. Training should only be required to address those gaps between the individual’s expectation and the interface. If the Human Factors Engineers have done their job thoroughly, only minimal training should be required. At BMT Designers & Planners we have found that training is often used as a means to cover gaps in poor design or lack of implementing human factors principles to design. Training should never be a key mechanism for mitigating risk only the rigorous application of HFE principles will affect human performance in high stress maritime environments.

While HFE must not be seen as a ‘silver bullet’ that will address all the health and safety issues in the maritime industry, it is certainly a proven tool that can help control the opportunities for error and minimise hazards while optimising performance. With the march of technology showing no decline, HFE looks to play an ever bigger role in years to come.