Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ENHANCE (ENHANCing Human Performance in Complex Socio-Technical SystEms)
Période du rapport: 2019-02-01 au 2022-11-30
During the past 40 years, ships have become larger – up to 650% – to increase cargo- and human-carrying capacities, while crews are getting smaller – up to 60% compared to 40 years ago (Mallam, 2016). Hence, the consequences of an incident and a single error also increase, as does the exposure risk.
Technological advancements, including automation of onboard systems, have become desirable to shipping companies’ due to their contribution to increasing efficiency (Grech, Horberry & Koester, 2008; Progoulaki & Roe, 2011). There is a clear and increasingly pressing need for the sector to increase the technological and human-factors core competencies of crew members to better manage complex, modern maritime vessels that have the potential to deliver catastrophic outcomes. Despite this, the maritime sector is reluctant to adopt new and innovative requirements, including training. This is particularly clear where additional expenditure is required, which is made worse by current economic strains that have led to cost-cutting in the sector (Allianz GCS, 2017). Our research has identified the processing industry as an ideal comparator and knowledge donor (and recipient) as it is considerably further ahead in combating human error through training and assessment and has many similarities with maritime sector. ENHANCE will improve the effectiveness of human factors training in the maritime sector by combining and applying multidisciplinary knowledge, capabilities and world-class facilities to research, create and validate a new approach to high-level, collaborative training, which ultimately reaches the developers and deliverers of training courses and the end users themselves. This project aims to “ENHANCE human performance in complex socio-technical systems” through a validated training and assessment package combining technological and human-factor core competencies. This will enable crew members to better manage complex, modern maritime vessels and be more resilient and adaptive to dynamic operating environments. The aims will be achieved through the following objectives (1) Increase the understanding of the current training practices and the human role in complex socio-technical systems by extensive sharing of knowledge, practices, and experiences among the research institutions, industrial partners across disciplines and countries. (2) Develop and validate improved and effective training and assessment packages - consisting of manuals, protocols, effective use of immersive technologies, online repository, software tools, handbooks - for enhancing the competence of maritime and process operators based on the state-of-the-art of training science. (3) Stimulate the academic community to create a legacy of maritime socio-technical research.
Technological advancements, including automation of onboard systems, have become desirable to shipping companies’ due to their contribution to increasing efficiency (Grech, Horberry & Koester, 2008; Progoulaki & Roe, 2011). There is a clear and increasingly pressing need for the sector to increase the technological and human-factors core competencies of crew members to better manage complex, modern maritime vessels that have the potential to deliver catastrophic outcomes. Despite this, the maritime sector is reluctant to adopt new and innovative requirements, including training. This is particularly clear where additional expenditure is required, which is made worse by current economic strains that have led to cost-cutting in the sector (Allianz GCS, 2017). Our research has identified the processing industry as an ideal comparator and knowledge donor (and recipient) as it is considerably further ahead in combating human error through training and assessment and has many similarities with maritime sector. ENHANCE will improve the effectiveness of human factors training in the maritime sector by combining and applying multidisciplinary knowledge, capabilities and world-class facilities to research, create and validate a new approach to high-level, collaborative training, which ultimately reaches the developers and deliverers of training courses and the end users themselves. This project aims to “ENHANCE human performance in complex socio-technical systems” through a validated training and assessment package combining technological and human-factor core competencies. This will enable crew members to better manage complex, modern maritime vessels and be more resilient and adaptive to dynamic operating environments. The aims will be achieved through the following objectives (1) Increase the understanding of the current training practices and the human role in complex socio-technical systems by extensive sharing of knowledge, practices, and experiences among the research institutions, industrial partners across disciplines and countries. (2) Develop and validate improved and effective training and assessment packages - consisting of manuals, protocols, effective use of immersive technologies, online repository, software tools, handbooks - for enhancing the competence of maritime and process operators based on the state-of-the-art of training science. (3) Stimulate the academic community to create a legacy of maritime socio-technical research.
Work Package One – six points. 1 - Review and identification of the major issues affecting the maritime and process industry in relation to operations, education and training. 2 - Review and identification of how simulators are used in each domain to develop operator skills – both technical and non-technical skill development. 3 - Comparison of educational requirements and certification requirements for operators in each safety-critical industry. 4 - Training approaches and types of training tools used in each industry. 5 - Future operator skills necessary, including how to educate these new skills. 6 - Based on WP1 secondments the domain-specific work scope was finalized and summarized.
Work Package Two – four points. 1 - An overview of objective PIs from the literature was generated. Objective PIs are specific for each application; usually a Subject Matter Expert (SME) will choose the most relevant ones, case by case. Objective PIs usually employed are: process variables evolution in time, times required by OP to perform some tasks and the correct execution of procedures. As described above, it is not viable to provide a set of objective PIs that will suite every system. Therefore, some representative case studies were examined. 2 - An overview of Empirical PIs from the literature was generated. Empirical PIs usually relate to the human cognitive state, the characterization of which is usually differentiated into various measures such as Situation Awareness (SA), Mental Workload (MWL). These PIs might have multiple definitions and might be correlated with each other. Many assessment techniques are employed. Some based on self-rating questionnaire, some based on behavioural observation, some other based on physiological response (e.g. Electrocardiogram, Electroencephalogram and eye tracking). 3 - How to differentiate the performance of a single operator from the performance of either a group or sub-group was investigated. This investigation looked at both, empirical PIs and objective PIs presented in the literature. Some techniques were modified after techniques employed in chapter one and two, others were based on metrics specifically developed for team evaluation. 4 - Information was collected through structured and unstructured interviews with coal power plant trainees and trainers. This allowed defining what they deem as important in coal power plant operation. Both soft and technical skills were taken into account. A set of objective Key PIs (KPIs) for the start-up procedure and a set of behavioural markers were developed.
By 31.08.2020 ENHANCE has produced nine peer-reviewed scientific publications. By 31.08.2020 knowledge on ENHANCE project and ongoing work was disseminated during 34 events. In addition, dedicated websites and social media platforms are being kept up-dated.
Work Package Two – four points. 1 - An overview of objective PIs from the literature was generated. Objective PIs are specific for each application; usually a Subject Matter Expert (SME) will choose the most relevant ones, case by case. Objective PIs usually employed are: process variables evolution in time, times required by OP to perform some tasks and the correct execution of procedures. As described above, it is not viable to provide a set of objective PIs that will suite every system. Therefore, some representative case studies were examined. 2 - An overview of Empirical PIs from the literature was generated. Empirical PIs usually relate to the human cognitive state, the characterization of which is usually differentiated into various measures such as Situation Awareness (SA), Mental Workload (MWL). These PIs might have multiple definitions and might be correlated with each other. Many assessment techniques are employed. Some based on self-rating questionnaire, some based on behavioural observation, some other based on physiological response (e.g. Electrocardiogram, Electroencephalogram and eye tracking). 3 - How to differentiate the performance of a single operator from the performance of either a group or sub-group was investigated. This investigation looked at both, empirical PIs and objective PIs presented in the literature. Some techniques were modified after techniques employed in chapter one and two, others were based on metrics specifically developed for team evaluation. 4 - Information was collected through structured and unstructured interviews with coal power plant trainees and trainers. This allowed defining what they deem as important in coal power plant operation. Both soft and technical skills were taken into account. A set of objective Key PIs (KPIs) for the start-up procedure and a set of behavioural markers were developed.
By 31.08.2020 ENHANCE has produced nine peer-reviewed scientific publications. By 31.08.2020 knowledge on ENHANCE project and ongoing work was disseminated during 34 events. In addition, dedicated websites and social media platforms are being kept up-dated.
By incorporating novel training and assessment, continuous skills improvement methods and findings from the high-risk process industry, ENHANCE aims to go beyond the existing state of art and provide significant original contribution to the challenges faced by maritime domain. Such approach has not been considered for the maritime sector before. The ENHANCE project presents takes the existing state of art in account and presents a novel approach, not only at the level of the final research outcomes - new training methods and performance assessment package - but also on the research methodologies introduced in the research plan.
Based on the work conducted so far, ENHANCE is contributing the state of the art knowledge development between both interdisciplinary collaboration and academic-industry collaboration in several areas related to theoretical and practical aspects of safety-critical sociotechnical systems. Thus far, with the completion of WP1 and WP2 tasks, ENHANCE has reached further than the existing state of the art of knowledge and capacity building between differing combinations of academic-industry and maritime-process industry exchange. In particularly, this included the structure and content of state of the art operator training programs, automation, autonomy and future skills, generic and transferable capacities, particularly operator Non-Technical Skills, subjective and objective performance indicators, assessment methodologies and state of the art training technologies, such as Virtual and Augmented Reality. Both industries have differing methods and technologies for training their operators, and cross fertilization of these interdisciplinary perspectives and knowledge is key to the progress of ENHANCE from WP3 onwards in order to design and develop future state of the art operator training and education.
Based on the work conducted so far, ENHANCE is contributing the state of the art knowledge development between both interdisciplinary collaboration and academic-industry collaboration in several areas related to theoretical and practical aspects of safety-critical sociotechnical systems. Thus far, with the completion of WP1 and WP2 tasks, ENHANCE has reached further than the existing state of the art of knowledge and capacity building between differing combinations of academic-industry and maritime-process industry exchange. In particularly, this included the structure and content of state of the art operator training programs, automation, autonomy and future skills, generic and transferable capacities, particularly operator Non-Technical Skills, subjective and objective performance indicators, assessment methodologies and state of the art training technologies, such as Virtual and Augmented Reality. Both industries have differing methods and technologies for training their operators, and cross fertilization of these interdisciplinary perspectives and knowledge is key to the progress of ENHANCE from WP3 onwards in order to design and develop future state of the art operator training and education.