Scenarios

A tanker owner-operator has been experiencing an increasing number of lost-time incidents on-board their vessels.

Understand the problem by talking to shore-based and seagoing staff, analysing records and documents.
Categorise the root causes – for example, poor working practices, lack of situational awareness, not managing the workload, undertaking critical tasks at inappropriate times, lack of harmonious working relationships on-board, poor communication between ship and shore, cultural misunderstandings, poor safety culture.
Develop options for appropriate and affordable solutions– for example, involving seafarers in revising or mapping procedures and systems, rethinking recruitment and retention practices and/or designing a programme for staff development.

A large cruise ship company is having problems attracting and retaining engineering officers.

Assess job profiles and job families in the organisational structure and review management reporting lines to understand job and organisation design factors.
Review pay and benefits package to determine equity/fairness and competitiveness in the market.
Interview incumbents and potential applicants to understand motivators and career aspirations.
Carry out a crew survey to identify contributory factors in the work environment and relationships which are affecting retention, such as communication, involvement in decision making, perceptions of supervisory and organisational support,
Use crew seminars to feedback the survey results and identify priorities for action
Recommend an action plan and communication strategy to ensure that the changes are implemented and people are informed of actions taken.

A cruise ship company reports a number of seemingly unconnected problems to do with their ships being damaged in berthing.

Participate in incident investigation and debriefing, observing and listening to the discussion in order to understand the explanations being forwarded for these incidents.
Reframe the scenarios to identify the resource management and leadership issues which may have contributed to the problems.
Observe the operational practices of a sample of ships in order to evaluate the communications and interactions of senior staff with each other and their teams in mooring operations.
Carry out a safety culture audit of the operational teams to identify underlying leadership and relationship issues hampering safe operations.
Debrief the senior management of the ship and the bridge team on the key findings regarding strengths and areas for improvement.
Provide recommendations to strengthen leadership on-board.
Develop a leadership development programme.

A major incident investigation reveals that the likely cause is officers falling asleep on duty.

Investigate the fatigue risks associated with the operation such as the trading patterns of the vessel, overtime hours worked and the watch schedules being used on-board.
Conduct visits to vessels and discuss with ships’ staff the impact of working patterns on their fatigue levels and well-being.
Use bio-mathematical modelling tools to examine a range of different scenarios for managing 24×7 operations to determine how best to organise rosters and manning levels and identify times of high-risk due to sleep deprivation.
Develop a fatigue risk management strategy that integrates with the safety management system in operation in the company.
Audit fatigue levels post-implementation using state-of-the-art technologies.