SEAHORSE procedure improvement system : development of instrument

Kurt, R. E. and Arslan, V. and Khalid, H. and Comrie, E. and Boulougouris, E. and Turan, O. (2016) SEAHORSE procedure improvement system : development of instrument. In: International SEAHORSE Conference on Maritime Safety and Human Factors, 2016-09-21 - 2016-09-23, Technology and Innovation Centre.

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Abstract

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) have been used in almost every sector in order to improve operational safety and efficiency. The situation is not different in maritime sector, where SOPs are enforced through the regulatory framework in order to achieve safer shipping operations. Even though it is a regulatory requirement to develop and implement SOPs, it can be seen that during shipping operations these procedures are not followed due to various reasons. It was observed that one of the most common reasons for not following an SOP is due to poorly designed procedures, which are impractical, unclear or sometimes factually wrong. Therefore, these poorly designed procedures are disregarded by crewmembers, which not only prevent the practical implementation of SOP’s during shipping operations but also devalue the importance of using SOPs. Therefore, it is of key importance that a systematic approach is needed to identify and improve the current SOP’s as well as preventing potentially harmful workarounds. The EU FP7 SEAHORSE project is developing a “Procedure Improvement System” which can be actively used by the crewmembers any time anonymously. In order to achieve this, a comprehensive questionnaire has been developed and used to collect data from seafarers across Europe where they were asked to report on impractical SOPs and common workarounds conducted on board ships. This paper presents the instrument and initial results.