Holistic human safety in the design of marine operations safety

Abstract

To avoid safety issues, current marine operations safety protocols follow only the work procedures and technical structures of systems that are provided by the operator; regardless, research continues to report safety issues related to cooperative work within marine operational systems. Thus, we use the concept of boundary object to analyze excerpts from a series of field notes and to discuss holistic human safety. We illustrate that human safety is only supported at the individual level of engineering community practices but does not address safety at a cooperative level between marine operations and other operations. At the individual level, human safety issues can be related to technical errors and failures in interaction and communication. This paper presents suggestions on how to make the work practices of marine engineers and marine operators visible within design processes, enabling them to collaborate with engineering designers and human factors engineers in the design of marine operations safety.