What to learn from support functions to improve maritime safety?

Report, 2025

Digitalisation has transformed the shipping industry making the operation and management of the fleets safer and more efficient. This development has in many ways contributed to a better work environment and the end users and operators seem to in general agree that these technical developments have been for the good. But this development has its challenges e.g. immature versions of technology causing unexpected errors due to bugs, complex interfaces and too much information to mention a few. The dependability of easy access to a reliable and skilled support is considered as important by the operators onboard. This has proved to be partly challenging since the shipping industry is a 24/7 operation and support is not always accessible; each equipment onboard has its support which quickly adds up the number of contacts to make.   

The purpose of this project has been to increase operational reliability and efficiency by investigating what measures can be taken to reduce dependence on support and how a future need for support can be organised. The results show that the two worlds can be brought closer together by, among other things, having a common language, applying user-centered design together with the end users, a partial standardization of certain technologies and prioritizing support during procurement. Continued research needs projects that investigate how the operators on board can be relieved by a land-based organization and what would make the support function easily accessible and more efficient. There is also a need to quantify the results to get an understanding of the magnitude of the problems.