Shipboard Bridge Resource Management By Michael R. Adams

Contents Human Factors Voyage Planning Standardized Procedure Situational Awareness and Voyage Monitoring Stress, Complacency, and Distraction Communications Fatigue Pilot Integration Teamwork Error Chains

Human Factors Technical Questions Define bridge resource management. What are the three navigation resources aboard any vessel? Approximately what percent of shipboard catastro- phes are caused by human factors? List the principles we study for BRM.

RMS Titanic Exxon Valdez USS Greeneville (SSN 772) collided with the M/V Ehime Maru Human factors led these ships into trouble. Human factors are found to be a significant contributing cause in 75 to 90 percent of ship catastrophes. When the people fail, the ship fail.

Goal: to learn why these failures occur and thereby to stop them before they happen. This study of all the human factors aboard ship (that is, the manner in which people work together with their equipments, available information, and each other) is known as bridge resource management ( BRM).

Theory of Bridge Resource management By closely examining ship catastrophes, we can consistently find patterns of human behavior that, when linked together, caused a ship to come to an unpleasant, even deadly end. The theory of BRM is this: By recognizing these behaviors and their links to each other, we can avoid or make allowances for the unwanted behavior and thus interrupt the undesirable series of events.

Theory of Bridge Resource management The goal of BRM is to help mariners operate their ships successfully, and It can achieve this goal because human beings have the ability to modify their own behavior. Once we learn what we’re doing wrong, we can start doing it right. We can break a couple of the individual strands of the spider web, and the wed will still do its job. However, when a series of strands is broken, even though the strands may not be adjacent, the web fails.

Theory of Bridge Resource management Those factors ultimately were all linked together in what we call error chain. Our goal is to avoid the avoidable and avert the apparently “inevitable” catastrophe.

Human Factors and BRM Human factors (that is human behaviors in task- oriented environments) are the focus of BRM. We have three navigation resources avail-able on any ship or boat: equipment, information, and humans.

Human Factors and BRM Getting human beings to work with each other is often the most important of the interrelationships among the bridge re-source. Our study of BRM concentrates on how individual and groups of individuals work together to create a successful voyage.

Voyage Planning Voyage planning and checklists are a form of information. Voyage plans are documents created in advance of the intended transit’s execution, they allow the maker time to reflect or reconsider or seek the advice of others about the accuracy and value of the plan.

Voyage Planning The reason things usually don’t go according to plan is because there is no plan. No prudent seaman will fail to have a backup or contingency plan. Weather, current, other vessels, equipment Poor execution of any plan, primary or contingent, can also lead to disaster.

Standard Procedures Many shipping companies and most military organizations have extensive checklists of requirements for their operations and mandate following those lists for every ”routine” evolutions. Standardized procedures are effective only when they are carefully followed.

Situational Awareness and Voyage Monitoring How do we know if our plan or our contingency plan is being followed? The answer is that we have to check it ourselves. Crossing checking is part of situational awareness.

Situational Awareness and Voyage Monitoring Situational awareness is more than just knowing what is going on: we must have an accurate perception of what is going on. One type of crossing-checking involves humans checking information, and another type of crossing- checking involves humans checking humans.

Stress, Complacency, and Distraction A good question is not why do we react to stress but rather how do we cope with it successfully? One way to manage stress is by sharing the workload among several people. The number of jobs to be done exceeds the ability of any one person to do them all, so we share workload.

Stress, Complacency, and Distraction So many “qualified” people on the bridge, individual watch-standers will begin to assume that everyone else is paying attention to the ship’s movements, and thus the vigilance of watch-standers will decrease. This is known as complacency.

Stress, Complacency, and Distraction Individuals who are not actively contributing to the handling and navigation of the ship may become distractions to those who are working.

Communications Communicating means more than just talking, or reading, or listening; it means really paying attention. We must not only make ourselves clear when speaking, but we must also make the effort to understand what it is we are being told when we are listening or reading.

Fatigue People who are tired have lower decision making ability, are slower to respond to changing conditions, and are less willing to communicate with other members of their team. Cumulative fatigue: the concept that a person who got 8 hours of sleep the night before an incident may not have had sufficient rest in the days before that.

Pilot Integration Human beings bring their experience with them to problem solving. The pilot intended track and the crew’s intended track were not the same.

Teamwork The least experienced person can offer the most valuable insight because he or she has no preconceived notions about what is “right” or “how it should be done”. Speaking a “foreign” language is a sure method to exclude someone from a team and break down teamwork.

Error Chains Rarely a mishap attributable to a single catastrophic cause. There is almost always a series of errors, or violations of BRM principles, that results in a ship sailing into catastrophe. How to break the chain?

Summary The principles of BRM: Voyage planning Standardized procedure NTOU LIOU, CHIAN Summary The principles of BRM: Voyage planning Standardized procedure Situational awareness and voyage monitoring Stress, complacency, and distraction Communications Fatigue Pilot integration Teamwork Error chains MERCHANT MARINE

Discussion Do you think there is any value in having a structure, such as BRM, to explain our actions aboard ship? Why or why not? Do you think any of the BRM principles are more important than others? Which ones? Why?