ANDY NORRIS MAIN HEAD Seafarers and bridge design DECK HEAD Is the end-user of ship's bridges, the seafarer, properly taken into account when designing them? If not then it certainly should be - Andy Norris reports on how this could work BODY The end-user has been surprisingly under-represented in the design process of much of the equipment used on ships' bridges. This is true both in the development of international performance standards for bridge equipment and in the design of manufacturers' specific solutions, which are aimed at meeting the international standards. Perhaps this lack of end-user input has contributed to the apparent failure of some equipment to really meet user needs and for much other equipment to have 'niggles and quirks', which continue to irritate many mariners. The latest examples of equipment failing to meet fundamental user needs have been in the design of a number of shipborne AIS units. The display features on some minimum keyboard and display (MKD) units are seen by many users as totally inadequate to assist the task of collision avoidance, (the main ship-to-ship use envisaged by IMO). Also, the entering of data, which is required to be frequently performed to provide updated information to VTS, is often difficult because of the size, type and orientation of some keyboards. SUBHEAD Contact with seafarers Although many manufacturing companies take user functionality seriously, it is difficult for them to get representative views from end-users because of the practical problems in accessing them. Therefore the sample size tends to be relatively low, which can lead to minority views taking precedence. The trend for manufacturers to use agents for servicing has taken away much of the direct contact that they used to have with the end-user. The difficulty of accessing the end-user also applies to the legislative and standards process. In practice, this difficulty has been partially circumvented by making good use of the relatively strong band of 'ex-users' working within both the legislative and the manufacturing sectors. Unfortunately, many of these ex-users have been away from sea-going service for a long time. Their considerable experience is vital for the industry but sometimes it is difficult to believe that the views of the practising mariner are always being heard. SUBHEAD Procurement power Obviously, end-users do not buy the equipment. Furthermore, they are normally at sea 'away' from the office and consequently from any discussion on procurement issues, despite satellite communications and emails. This often means that user needs are not being fed-back to the suppliers, even during the buying process. In many cases the technical superintendent, who was probably at sea some years ago but 'does speak to sea-going staff', feels able to provide the user comments, unaided. (To be fair, this superintendent bears the brunt of complaints from users and so may have a reasonably good idea of what the worst problems are. Also there are companies - and superintendents - who do properly consult their staff on such issues). In any case, many procurement decisions are based solely on deciding what the cheapest, legislation compliant solution is. In this highly competitive and legislated world this is not an obviously inappropriate policy, particularly if full-life costing techniques are used to make the decision. Of course, it assumes that the legislation is looking after the users' interests. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. Accordingly, some suppliers tend to react to this type of procurement by providing minimum-cost legislation-compliant solutions. To minimise development and manufacturing costs all the needs of the end-user may not have been taken into account, either by design or because they have not been properly researched. SUBHEAD Involving seafarers The solution to this problem perhaps lies with the users themselves. They have to be heard by the legislators and the standards organisations to get their needs embodied in the fundamental equipment performance requirements. This is not an easy process as the end-user is at sea using the equipment and cannot spend time on shore helping legislators and manufacturers in deciding issues of equipment design. At the very least who would be willing to pay for this activity? However, with modern communications they can get their views known, directly from their vessel. The Nautical Institute (NI), based in London but with a truly international membership of seafaring officers, is one body that has started to get the practising mariner more involved with equipment issues. This is mainly by direct communication to mariners at sea but has also involved conferences, which are attended by legislators, manufacturers and practising seafarers. Importantly, the NI is also keeping mariners up-to-date with information on the impending equipment issues that could affect them. Even members of the NI joke that if you ask ten mariners a question on their bridge equipment requirements you will get at least eleven different answers! Therefore, the Institute has to compress the received comments intelligently into a coordinated response. The information collected is being made available to legislators and manufacturers through the IEC (International Electrotechnical Committee) and CIRM (International Association for Marine Electronics Companies). SUBHEAD Different requirements One of the reasons for the 'eleven answers' is that equipment can be used quite differently, depending on the operation of the vessel. For instance, the OOW on a busy channel-crossing ferry uses many features that would not be used by the deep-sea user. Pilots often have specific requirements for equipment, which are not required by other users. These all have to be taken into account, perhaps requiring different operational modes to be included on equipment, in order not to overcomplicate their basic use. An example of the NI initiative has been in the collection of mariners views on the possible introduction of 'New Technology' radar. (See Digital Ship April 2004). Although this gives the possibility of improved clutter performance these new radars would not be able to trigger racons. The views (still being received by the Nautical Institute) indicate a strong preference to get better clutter performance at S-Band, at the expense of triggering S-Band racons, provided conventional radars remain at X-Band with retained ability to trigger X-Band racons. The IEC were able to present the preliminary response of this survey at the recent meeting of the IMO sub-committee on navigation. SUBHEAD The future Such increased participation by end-user groups will inevitably result in changing requirements in legislation and standardisation. It is perhaps only in these areas that improved end-user benefits can be assured. An area which is causing concern to the mariner is in the increased number and the complexity of navigation and communications equipment. It is causing problems in the familiarisation process when users board a vessel for the first time. Some units have become so complex that specific (shore-based) training is really a pre-requisite. This can often be impractical so it is creating a call from mariners for more standardisation of the user interface of equipment, which perhaps needs to be specified through legislation. Some, (mostly non-users) would consider this to be a negative step, as it would inhibit the development by manufacturers of improved user interfaces. (Once something is embodied in legislation it is hard to get it changed and it stifles development). Maybe such a move would be acceptable to all if the basic functions of bridge equipment could be operated to a common user-interface mode but could also be optionally switched to a manufacturer's 'improved' mode. Importantly, there is now a process in place such that users' views can be increasingly heard. Both the IEC and CIRM would be pleased to receive coordinated user responses from other organisations concerning aspects of bridge navigation and communications equipment.