Aiming for Alarm System Improvements for Ship Engine Operation Using Engine Control Console Alarm Data

Abstract

The work of an operator on board a ship is changing from technical tasks to those more clerical and administratively demanding. This transformation is well underway because of developments in automation. The automation is bringing more sensors into the system; this leads to an increasing number of alarms stored in the engine control console. Reducing the number of crew and officers as a result of the automation to increase efficiency makes the operator workload increase, especially in troubleshooting conditions. Improvement in an alarm system for the engine control console is a proposal to reduce the operator workload and support their decision-making process. To understand current conditions in alarm systems, three years of alarm data from our training ship’s engine control console was recovered and analyzed. We conclude that the alarm rate, the number of alarms per interval time, is low and acceptable in light of alarm management guidelines. We also found a large number of false alarms associated with sensor trouble. The exposure to such a number of false alarms leads to operator distrust of the alarm system, known as a cry-wolf syndrome. Improvement in the alarm system will bring a reasonable response rate of troubleshooting to the alarms.