Putting humans at the centre of maritime operations

by Capt. Sanjay Mittal

During the 2023 SAFETY4SEA Singapore Forum, Capt. Sanjay Mittal, Chief Executive Officer, Racon Marine Consultants Pte. Ltd., gave a presentation which centred on the vital theme of human factor in current and industry initiatives.

OCIMF has put the agenda at the centre of human factors with the following three leading initiatives: Human Factors Management and Self- Assessment; Human Factors in SIRE 2.0 and; Behavioural Competency Assessments.

Data from EMSA that studied incidents from 2014 to 2021 found that 81.1% of all the factors that contributed to these incidents related to human element. In the navigational incidents, EMSA revealed that ‘human action’ counts 83.5% of the accident events reported for collisions, around 75% for grounding and around 71% for contacts.

There is empirical evidence to support that most ‘human errors’ are a result of faulty organizational cultures rather than solely brought about by the individuals concerned. How we are affected by the tools, tasks, the environment we work in, and the culture of the teams and organizations, help in understanding the factors that might inhibit our performance or support it.

When we talk about the Human Factors, ergonomics, equipment design, motivation, task design, resource allocation, communication, organizational culture, teamwork, conflicts, stress, fatigue, training, anxiety are important issues for consideration. OCIMF defines human factors as ‘ the physical, psychological and social characteristics that affect human interaction with equipment, systems, process, other individuals and work team(s).’ Thus, if you have equipment, systems and operations and put human at the centre, half of the issues can be resolved.

The reason is that when we design processes, we take into account safety and environmental considerations, regulatory issues, the company’s goals and policies, industry standards, risk assessments and others, but in practice, the job is never done the way we imagine. This is due to unexpected problems, equipment resource limitations, human factors, unclear procedures, error traps and changing conditions.

Unless the practical insights obtained from the above mentioned feed back into the system, we may continue make same mistakes. But if they feed back into your systems and provide the controls to prevent, detect and recover from mistakes, this will result in enhanced safety productivity and reduction in human error.

OCIMF’s Human Factors – Management and Self Assessment:

• Provides a framework to integrate human factors into management systems
• Intented to be included in future TMSA editions (TMSA, Element 14?)
• Key objective is to help companies recognize and control the conditions and systems that influence human actions and decisions, and so, promote safety and excellence across all operations.
• Recognizes that people onboard ships make the safety work but human error occurs in their interaction with conditions, systems and/ or other people. By addressing these interactions, we can reduce human error and improve reliability

OCIMF tool focuses on 5 key areas:

1. Leadership – role of leadership in shaping culture
2. Capability – well executed tasks and procedures
3. Design and execution – well-designed equipment and controls
4. Skills – skills to respond to emerging situations
5. Learning – learning before and after things go wrong

OCIMF recognizes that there are three important components that constitute a system: Equipment, Processes and People. People are an integral part of safety barriers that prevents incidents and helps recover, in case something goes wrong. If you take the people away, the process will fail. SIRE 2.0 seeks to carry out a holistic review of Equipment, Processes and People. Therefore, the inspectors would look at all three aspects to ensure that the safety critical systems are healthy.

Furthermore, the inspectors will focus on Physical, Psychological, Organizational and Social ‘Performance Influencing Factors (PIFs)’ in each task. The inspectors are looking for evidence that the task can be reliably executed in future. If one or more PIFs are ‘unhealthy’ this can lead to failure of a safety critical task. A task may therefore be marked ‘not as expected; despite the hardware the processes being adequate, due to Human Factors. The SIRE inspections are a good opportunity to learn about the effectiveness of our barriers that prevents incidents. By addressing the ‘unhealthy’ PIFs, we can increase the reliability of the task.

In the process of assessing human factors, these should form a part of any Competency Management System. Therefore, it is important to identify specific issues with human performance, rather than generalizing these under an umbrella. Assessments, focused on people, should be carried out especially for safety- critical tasks like navigation, mooring, cargo work and engine room operations. As the humans are a key part of our safety barriers, the assessments should include assessment of human factors besides the technical aspects.

OCIMF has produced a ‘Behavioural Competency Framework’ to offer a structured approach to managing, appraising and improving performance. According to this tool, ‘’high- performing organizations increasingly recognize that it is not just what people do but how they do their jobs that makes the difference in achieving objectives. It is crucial to have systems and practices in place that are geared towards defining, assessing, maintaining and developing soft skills that contribute to a culture of high performance, which can be observed through people’s actions and behaviours.’’

Key takeaways

• Create an environment where the company is constantly learning and improving. Past success is not a guarantee for future outcomes
• People are not the problem; they are the problem- solvers
• Processes and equipment should be designed with humans at core. Ask them what they need to be successful
• Enhance positive capabilities – resources and readiness. Do not focus on things that go wrong. Focus on things that go right and take the leadership to enhance the capacities that make things go right.
• Recognize great performance

Above article has been edited from Capt. Sanjay Mittal’s presentation during the 2023 SAFETY4SEA Singapore Forum.