The International Maritime Human Factors Symposium (IMHFS) 2024 was held at the IMO Headquarters in London and Solis Marine were proud to contribute to this developing field.
Solis Marine’s Head of Marine Engineering Services, Alvin Forster, delivered a presentation on how we can bring human factor concepts to the shipping company and the seafarer, and participated in a panel session on ‘safety culture’.
Awareness of human factors and human performance is less developed in the maritime industry when compared to aviation and other high-risk industries. Other than a few large shipping companies and the oil majors, most shipping companies are not familiar with the concepts.
In his presentation, Alvin leaned on his research and experience while he was at a leading P&I club; taking both academic research and existing practices from other industries and exploring how human factors could be introduced to shipping.
A particular area of interest is how shipping companies can incorporate human factors into investigations of incidents and near-misses. Currently, many investigation reports issued by shipping companies arrive at 'root causes' of “human error” or “didn’t follow procedures”. This usually leads to disciplinary action or identifies a need for “more training” or adding more procedures to the already bloated vessel’s safety management system.
The real causes are not being identified. As such, the real issues remain hidden, and the corrective actions are at best ineffective and could actually make things worse.
However, the challenge for most shipping companies lies in investing time and resources in training their people in understanding and applying human factors. Much of the existing concepts and methods are complex, and their adoption is unlikely for many in the maritime industry.
At the conference, Alvin stressed the need for simple, practical and usable methods that would allow the incorporation of human factors into investigations.
Find out more
If you are interested in the topic of human factors, and in particular how they can be successfully embedded in the maritime sphere, contact Alvin Forster at a.forster@solis-marine.com