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Sensemaking in Safety Critical and Complex Situations
EXPERIENCES, BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
Incorporating design thinking and an us er-centred design process in the development of a ship bridge environment has been challenging and costly but holds benefits that the operators find highly advantageous. A study done by Danielsen et al.
( 2019) investigates the ship bridge environment on board two platform supply vessels
with the Unified Bridge installed. The vessels had been in operation for 5 years with
low turnover on the bridge crew and their feedback were undoubtedly positive. The
crew described the Unified Bridge as being well arranged and an user-friendly environment to work in. These findings give strong indications that the human-centred
design process behind the development of this ship bride seems to have been able to
accommodate many of the end-user needs. The seafarers claim that the design makes
sense to them and is in line with their practices of work. Although there were some
points of improvement, these improvements were not significant in comparison with
earlier challenges with different suppliers of ship bridge environments. However, the
crew did spark a concern regarding the crew’s autonomy as integrated bridges, such
as the Unified Bridge, may increase supervision and control from shore.
In addition to a few design issues, the development process initiated some
challenges:
– The industry is conservative with low adaptability.
– The industry has low level of standardization of equipment placement.
– In the supply chain, the shipyard is a strong stakeholder with a strong cost
focus.
– The classification rules and regulations did not follow the speed of innovation and compromises had to be made that impaired the quality of the user
experience.
– High production costs of levers, consoles, chair and displays due to a low
initial volume.
– High expectations from customers who wanted a conventional ship bridge
with a high level of tailoring according to personal preference or due to
that they had “ always done it like that”. This counteracts the purpose of the
Unified Bridge, where one of the requirements was to simplify and standardize. One delivered vessel actually ended up with more displays and
monitors than systems, as strong voices from the ship owner always wanted
to have everything available, which was not the intention with the concept.
No operator can monitor everything at the same time. This exemplifies the
conservative mindset often met in the industry, which challenges the intention behind innovation and novel concept development.
The experiences gained from the development of the Unified Bridge point out some
focus areas:
– There must be a strong and well-organized project group and organization
around the concept development to keep the project on track. This was a
success factor for the Unified Bridge project.
Sensemaking in Safety Critical and Complex Situations
EXPERIENCES, BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
Incorporating design thinking and an us er-centred design process in the development of a ship bridge environment has been challenging and costly but holds benefits that the operators find highly advantageous. A study done by Danielsen et al.
( 2019) investigates the ship bridge environment on board two platform supply vessels
with the Unified Bridge installed. The vessels had been in operation for 5 years with
low turnover on the bridge crew and their feedback were undoubtedly positive. The
crew described the Unified Bridge as being well arranged and an user-friendly environment to work in. These findings give strong indications that the human-centred
design process behind the development of this ship bride seems to have been able to
accommodate many of the end-user needs. The seafarers claim that the design makes
sense to them and is in line with their practices of work. Although there were some
points of improvement, these improvements were not significant in comparison with
earlier challenges with different suppliers of ship bridge environments. However, the
crew did spark a concern regarding the crew’s autonomy as integrated bridges, such
as the Unified Bridge, may increase supervision and control from shore.
In addition to a few design issues, the development process initiated some
challenges:
– The industry is conservative with low adaptability.
– The industry has low level of standardization of equipment placement.
– In the supply chain, the shipyard is a strong stakeholder with a strong cost
focus.
– The classification rules and regulations did not follow the speed of innovation and compromises had to be made that impaired the quality of the user
experience.
– High production costs of levers, consoles, chair and displays due to a low
initial volume.
– High expectations from customers who wanted a conventional ship bridge
with a high level of tailoring according to personal preference or due to
that they had “ always done it like that”. This counteracts the purpose of the
Unified Bridge, where one of the requirements was to simplify and standardize. One delivered vessel actually ended up with more displays and
monitors than systems, as strong voices from the ship owner always wanted
to have everything available, which was not the intention with the concept.
No operator can monitor everything at the same time. This exemplifies the
conservative mindset often met in the industry, which challenges the intention behind innovation and novel concept development.
The experiences gained from the development of the Unified Bridge point out some
focus areas:
– There must be a strong and well-organized project group and organization
around the concept development to keep the project on track. This was a
success factor for the Unified Bridge project.