Human Factors on Offshore Supply Vessels in the Norwegian Sea - An Explanatory Survey

Abstract

A survey of human factors on two state-of-the-art offshore supply vessels (OSVs) operating in the Norwegian Sea was performed by means of questionnaires. The purpose of the study was to examine whether human factors had been adequately addressed in ship design, how they were regarded by the crews, and whether design decisions were believed to have an effect on incidents on-board. The concept of human factors in ship design was operationalised into eight dimensions: habitability, workability, controllability, maintainability, manoeuvrability, survivability, occupational health and safety (OHS), and system safety. Inferential statistics were applied in order to draw conclusions, including means comparisons and multivariate regression analyses. The results show that human factors were given significant importance in the ship design. The level of accomplishment of human factors differs from one dimension to another. The highest satisfactory dimension was OHS and maintainability was the lowest, but still considered adequate. Design is revealed to have an impact on human factor ratings. Further, OSV design and human factor ratings are identified as having effects on particular incidents on board.