Whilst the digital and smart ship dominated the agenda, crew training sat at the centre of many presentations, with many of the expert speakers taking the opportunity to delve deeper into the importance of seafarer training and available facilities.
The human element is a critical aspect of any ship operation. However, what is more important is ensuring that the human element has the competence in order to carry out operations and make decisions as effectively as possible, said Dr Maria Carrera-Arce Senior Specialist, Strategic Research at Lloyd’s Register. People need to be properly experienced, but integrating complex technology and ever increasing smart systems with competent people that can use the systems is challenging, she said.
Both Dleep Fotedar and Dr. Nicola Crawford, City of Glasgow College agreed that competence is key. What should each seafarer be competent in first was the question asked. Sometimes the skills are available but the behaviour is what needs training, suggested Fotedar. The expansion of the £220 million Glasgow College maritime training centre aims to do just this, using psychology alongside technology to inspire to students and give them the skills they need to understand the technology.
According to Fotedar, seafarers can look at data, GPS, radar, and understand what it shows but not truly understand what it means. Today, people are becoming used to seeing data all the time, such as through smart phones and other smart technology, but are becoming less accustomed to thinking about the data it displays and questioning if and why there could be errors. People therefore need the right psychology as well as the right skills to draw conclusions from the data, continued Fotedar.
In order to ensure we can provide this, we need people to make decisions based on a way of learning that suits them, said Crawford. Exercises that are tailored to an individual’s learning style are essential to enable seafarers to learn best and learn properly. It’s all very well investing in new technologies and smarter methods of shipping, but what we really need is to invest the innovations in humans.
Crawford gave a good example, getting the floor to guess what another person is thinking. As she proved, this is extremely difficult, and this is transferred to seafarer training. You cannot guess what people are thinking and how they are learning – if you do this, mistakes will be made. You need to give people the opportunity to learn deeply, which can only be done if people are trained properly through ways that meet their needs.
Furthermore, smart ships will need new skills, and with the increasing threat of cyber hackers, people need new skills that will enable them to manage increasing data and the cyber threats that come alongside this, stated Carrera-Arce.
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