DEVELOPING ERGONOMIC BASED CLASSIFICATION RULES

N J Méry and J McGregor, Bureau Veritas, France

SUMMARY

Classification societies, as some of the most important maritime safety stakeholders are getting increasingly involved in
human casualty prevention at sea and are willing to contribute to setting up ergonomic design standards for ships. This
paper presents the initiatives of Bureau Veritas which aim to improve occupational safety onboard through the use of
ergonomics at the design and approval stage.

The paper will describe the first two steps of the society’s strategy to introduce low cost solutions that greatly reduce the
risks faced by seafarers. The first step led to the development and publication of a guidance note for the ergonomic
design of the means of access onboard (ladders, openings, walkways, etc.). The second ongoing step is the development
of a guidance note for the ergonomic design and arrangement of the machinery and control spaces. This second step
considers three main topics, namely: occupational health and safety; workplace design and; the human-machine
interaction.

NOMENCLATURE
IMO International Maritime Organisation
OHS Occupational Health and Safety
STF Slips, Trips and Falls
ILO International Labour Organisation
GBS Goal-based Standards (new approach at IMO to
develop holistic requirements for rules)
IACS International Association of Classification
Societies
ISO International Organisation for Standardisation
ASTM American Society for Testing Materials
HMI Human Machine Interaction
1. INTRODUCTION
There is a need from the maritime industry to increase its
standards in terms of Occupational Health and Safety
(OHS). Not all of the industry’s actors are aware that
occupational accidents onboard commercial ships cause
everyday injuries to seafarers which can sometimes be
fatal. A recent survey of the Norwegian Maritime
Directorate’s database and Lloyd’s Register’s Fairplay
database found that more than 50% of the deaths
recorded by the Norwegian Maritime Directorate were
due to occupational accidents and none of these were
recorded by Lloyd’s Register’s Fairplay database.
Additionally, these injuries and fatalities induce direct
and indirect costs for shipping companies and P&I clubs.
Classification societies are among the main actors in
maritime safety. Historically, Class has been more
focussed on ensuring vessels’ seaworthiness, they now
tend to aim at managing the risks the ship system will
encounter. This risk management includes the risk to
humans and improving more explicitly seafarers’ safety
by considering the human element as part of the ship
system. Class societies are not only implicitly
encouraged by the growing human element community
to conduct research in the area of human factors but it is
also explicitly stated by the International Maritime
Organisation (IMO) in the current requirements of Goal
Based Standards (GBS) for oil tankers and bulk carriers
that classes’ common structural rules should follow
ergonomic design principles1 [1].
Thus, Bureau Veritas initiated several activities to
research and develop requirements ensuring seafarers’
and surveyors’ safety onboard merchant vessels. These
activities are based on integrating ergonomic design
features in the vessel and her equipment through low or
no cost rule requirements.
In fact, there are two main objectives for making the
design safer through ergonomics:
▪ Reduce the number of occupational accidents
onboard
▪ Reduce the number of unsafe acts and so-called
human errors onboard
It is acknowledged that ergonomic based requirements
from guidelines, additional notations or classification
rules cannot cover the wide range of ships’ designs. The
ideal solution is to carry out a full ergonomic analysis
(Human Factors Engineering) based on these
requirements during the design phase of the vessel with a
strong emphasis on task analysis. However, this would
increase the design costs substantially. Ergonomics
driven rule requirements on the other hand provide a
framework for ensuring that the vast majority of related
risks are managed at almost no extra cost to the design
process.
2. FIRST STEP: ERGONOMIC DESIGN OF
THE MEANS OF ACCESS
2.1 PREVENTING SLIPS, TRIPS AND FALLS
Slips, Trips and Falls (STF) are some of the most
common and frequent occupational accidents in the
industry. They can happen in many places onboard a
merchant vessel: ships motions at sea are very likely to
1
This means that these rules should integrate the
seafarers’ activity in the ship design requirement.
cause seafarers to lose balance, wet or oily floors are
likely to cause seafarers slipping, dark areas are likely to
cause them tripping on obstacles on the floor or bumping
into protruding pipes, etc. Surveyors are also exposed to
STF accidents while on duty, especially during close-up
surveys where they have to closely inspect a great
amount of the ship’s structures. Moreover, a 2005 study
by Jensen et al. [2] shows that STFs account for more
than 40% of non-fatal occupational injuries occurring at
sea and more than 60% of accidents requiring at least 90
days to recover.
We chose to address STFs through the design of the
Means of Access (MAs) onboard vessels [3], a strategy
which has already been demonstrated to be successful for
the offshore industry. Additionally, some research made
by the US Department of Navy led to the definition of a
general cost model for the introduction of measures for
fall protection and prevention (from height) [4]:
incorporating fall protection and prevention measures at
the final drawing stage will cost ten times more than
doing it during the conceptual design; in the same way,
the costs will be 100 times higher if the measures are
done as a construction modification, 1,000 times higher
during start-up and testing and 10,000 times higher
during maintenance phase. This accounts for the
importance of integrating the human element as early as
possible during the life cycle of the ship.
Additionally, the design of the means of access is
addressed by the IMO amended SOLAS regulations II-
1/3-6 [5] and the revised technical provisions for means
of access [6] and the corresponding International
Association of Classification Societies’ (IACS) Unified
Interpretations (UI) [7]. These regulations, provisions
and requirements present a first basis for the ergonomic
design of the means of access however, more detailed
requirements for a user-centred design of the MAs,
ensuring the safety of seafarers and surveyors, are
required.
2.2 THE IMPORTANCE OF USER FEEDBACK
When developing requirements – based on ergonomic
principles – for user centred design as we did for the
means of access, it is very important and even required
that the users participate. Who better than the seafarers
and surveyors themselves can assess the design of the
means of access? The answer is obvious: nobody.
Therefore we collected user feedback through different
ways: interviews in office, interviews onboard (we also
built ourselves a practical opinion on the reality of using
means of access) and questionnaires.
2.3 A RISK BASED METHODOLOGY
We used the feedback from surveyors and seafarers for
identifying and assessing STF related hazards and risks.
The questionnaires were particularly useful for
quantifying the risks associated to different places
onboard and different means of access. Respondents
were asked to assess the “dangerousness” of the places
and means of access on a qualitative scale of severity of
injuries (e.g. very dangerous ≡ death or disability); they
were also asked to assess the frequency of access of the
different places. We could finally derive a risk measure
from these severities and frequencies.
2.4 ANTHROPOMETRY
For the development of ergonomic based requirements it
is necessary to analyse:
▪ the work environment,
▪ the tasks to be carried out there,
▪ and the population of users who perform these
tasks.
We addressed the first two points through the
identification of the STF hazards and the safety
assessment of the means of access based on user
feedback. For the analysis of the population of users,
we performed an anthropometric analysis.
Anthropometry is the study of the human body
dimensions and strength. An anthropometry analysis
is required to ensure that the product designed (here
the means of access) fits the physical characteristics
of the users while he carries out his tasks (see Figure
1 below).
Figure 1: Anthropometry in its environment
We can illustrate the importance of taking into account
the physical characteristics of seafarers by referring to an
accident that occurred recently and that could have been
avoided if an anthropometric analysis had been done
during the design phase of the vessel [8]: in September
2007, three seafarers died onboard an emergency
response rescue vessel in the North Sea as a result of
both an oxygen deficient atmosphere within the chain
locker and a non-anthropometrically sized chain locker
access hatch. The first seaman entered the chain locker in
order to tie off the chain and collapsed; the second
seaman, in an attempt to rescue the former entered the
chain locker and collapsed as well; then the third seaman
tried to get into the chain locker equipped with a
breathing apparatus (BA) but finally had to use an
emergency escape breathing device (EEBD) instead
since, being a large man, he couldn’t descend through the
hatch while wearing a BA. Unfortunately, EEBDs are not
built for rescue and (also for some other reasons) the
third seaman experienced breathing problems and
collapsed. Obviously the size of the hatch was not at the
origin of the accident but it contributed to the failure of
the attempt to rescue the first two seamen and the death
of the third one.
Thus, we developed dimensional requirements in
accordance with the anthropometric characteristics of the
population studied for the design of the MAs. For
instance, in reference to the accident summarised in this
section, openings should be wide enough to allow a large
person, wearing a BA to rescue another person situated at
the other side of the opening.
We used CAD virtual environments representing some
typical areas on the ship and virtual manikins as shown
on figure 2 hereafter:
Figure 2: CAD 3-dimmensional simulations for the
anthropometry analysis of the means of access
2.5 THE GUIDELINES FOR THE DESIGN OF
THE MEANS OF ACCESS FOR INSPECTION,
MAINTENANCE AND OPERATION OF
COMMERCIAL SHIPS
A guidance note entitled “Guidelines for the Design of
the Means of Access for Inspection, Maintenance and
Operation of Commercial Ships” was published in April
2008 by Bureau Veritas [9]. This document provides ship
owners, shipyards, marine engineers, naval architects and
every stakeholder involved in the design and building of
merchant ships with dimensional requirements and
practical advice for the design, use and maintenance of
the Means of Access. These requirements address in
particular the following types of means of access:
▪ Walkways, guardrails and handrails
▪ Vertical and horizontal openings
▪ Vertical ladders
▪ Inclined ladders or stair ladders
3. SECOND STEP: ERGONOMIC DESIGN
OF THE MACHINERY SPACES
3.1 ACCIDENTS IN THE MACHINERY SPACES
During the study on the design of the means of access
onboard commercial ships it clearly appeared – with the
analysis of surveyors’ feedback through questionnaires –
that machinery spaces are considered as some of the most
risky places onboard commercial ships: the analysis of
the feedback showed that even if the severity of injuries
occurring in machinery spaces is quite average, the
frequency of access (daily and weekly) is high, and this
increases the risk a lot.
Furthermore, these findings are confirmed by some
relatively recent studies. In Hansen et al. 2002 paper,
“Maintenance in the engine room” and “Repair work in
the engine room” were among the most dangerous tasks
in terms of number of notified occupational accidents
occurring onboard Danish flag merchant ships for the
1993-1997 period. This Danish study was then presented
to the IMO at MSC 83 [10]. In addition, the 2005
questionnaire study by Jensen et al. [2] showed that 31%
out of the 461 reported injuries (11 countries worldwide)
analysed happened in the engine room.
According to our work on the means of access, slips,
trips and falls related injuries occurring in the machinery
spaces – representing 37% of the total number of injuries
in machinery spaces in Jensen et al.’s paper – would be
partly due to be the bad location or simply the lack of
access to some parts of the machinery spaces, making it
harder to carry out operation, maintenance, repair and
inspection tasks safely. What about the other causes and
types of injuries? How can the design of the machinery
space prevent occupational accidents?
In order to answer these two questions, we logically
decided to more comprehensively assess the safety of
machinery spaces and research on how to design safe
machinery spaces with ergonomic principles. Besides,
this particular area appears to be one of the IMO’s
concerns: in 1998 the MSC Committee of the IMO
adopted the MSC circular 834 [11] providing guidelines
for the design of the machinery spaces mainly based on
human factors’ related requirements (including
ergonomics) aiming to encourage ships designers,
shipowners, ship operators, shipping companies,
shipmasters and engine-room staff caring about and
improving safety and effectiveness of these places.
3.2 HAZARD IDENTIFICATION
The methodology we adopted is the same as the one we
used for the development of ergonomics-based
requirements for the design of the means of access. Thus,
the first step is to identify hazards that seafarers face in
the machinery spaces. We characterise hazards by a
combination of the following three main elements as
represented on figure 3:
 ▪ A place or a piece of equipment: machinery
spaces are quite different in terms of layout, Hazards were identified and defined according to the
depending on the type of vessel, her size, her information gathered through interviews of people
trading area and her type of propulsion. working or having worked in machinery spaces (ex-
However, all machinery spaces have roughly design engineer, surveyors, ex-superintendant, ex- first
the same types of equipment and way of engineers), visits onboard an emergency rescue boat, a
functioning: the three primary functions of the ro-ro ferry and a container ship as well as information
machinery spaces are the propulsion, taken from the International Labour Organisation (ILO)
manoeuvring and power supply of the vessel; [12] [13] [14] [15] and accident reports from various
the five main circuits are the fuel circuit, the national maritime investigation bodies (MAIB, MARS,
lubrication circuit, the air circuit, the water CHIRP, BEAmer, NMD, DMA, etc.).
circuit and the electrical circuit. In other words,
what we mean by the expression “machinery We illustrate our findings by two situations encountered
spaces” is “every room, or piece of equipment during our visits onboard:
which is part of the propulsion system, the The first one describes a hazard present in every engine
steering system or the power supply system”. room. Various maintenance and cleaning tasks require
As an example, this definition typically removing some plates from the walking platform in order
includes the engine control room, the main to access some pipes, valves and other devices. However,
engine room, the transformer room, the pump this constitutes a risk for someone to fall into the hole on
room, the steering gear room or the workshops the floor as shown on figure 4 hereafter:
(the latter being part of all three systems
through the maintenance and repair activities it
implies).
▪ A task: seafarers have to carry out many
different tasks for operating, maintaining,
repairing and inspecting the machinery spaces.
These tasks can be carried out on a routine
basis, after inspection, or in an emergency
situation.
▪ A action is defined as a specific task in a
specific place.
▪ A triggering factor and/or an environmental
factor: these factors determine the ‘failure
mode’ of the task carried out. For our analysis,
triggering factors will principally derive from a
bad/unsuitable/ineffective design of the
equipment (design of the controls, the screens,
the gauges, and the access to the equipment,
etc.) or a wrong/inappropriate action (due to Figure 4: A dangerous situation in the main engine room
stress during an emergency situation, a failure
to follow the procedures, unsuitable procedures, The second illustration raises the ‘issue’ of relatively
a lack of communication, heavy workload due small vessels (such as coasters, ferries or HSC) in which
to a system failure, etc.). Environmental factors the space onboard is restricted. In fact, logically, the
are typically temperature, noise, vibrations, etc. economy of space is often done in the machinery spaces
since this area has no commercial function. We can
therefore have sometimes very little space around some
pieces of equipment for maintenance and not enough
space to adopt a suitable and comfortable working
posture, as shown on figure 5 hereafter where the ceiling
in the steering gear room is so low that almost nobody
can stand up.

Figure 3: Characterisation of hazards in the machinery

spaces

Figure 5: Lack of space in a steering gear room
The list of hazards should be ideally as comprehensive as
possible. We will not present in this paper all the hazards
we identified, however some of the hazards very often
cited by users and ex users are:
▪ Heavy maintenance tasks in the main engine
room but particularly in smaller rooms such as
pump rooms were pointed out. The triggering
factors mentioned are a poor and/or unsuitable
arrangement of the lifting and systems. Because
of the ship motions one can be crushed by heavy
parts being lifted. Sometimes there are no lifting
devices and no easy access to the part that has to
be moved or maintained; had an emergency
situation occurred (a hot fuel oil leakage for
instance) it would be very hard to get out
quickly because of the lack of space.
▪ The temperature in some parts of the engine
room is a real concern for seafarers. The
temperature can be very high in tropical areas
while it can be very low during winter in
northern Europe areas for instance. Working
during hours in too high or too low temperatures
significantly decreases the performance of
seafarers and represents an increased risk for
being injured.
▪ Burns on hot parts of the machinery seem to be
very common for seafarers as well since it is
quite easy to touch hot pipes inadvertently while
concentrating on performing another task.
▪ Location of wheels and valves (dangerous or not
accessible) can create two types of hazards.
They can turn into obstacles or since they are
sometimes out of easy reach people have to
climb or crawl to use them while balancing in a
precarious position which represents an
unsuitable working posture for the type of work
performed. Some typical examples are
highlighted on the US Navy safety centre
website or in Andersson & Lützhöft’s 2007
paper [16].
3.3 RISK RANKING
In the same way as for the study on the means of access,
we used risk in order to rank the hazards identified
previously in terms of safety and performance. Risks
associated to the identified hazards are based on (1) the
severity of injuries and decrease in the performance they
are likely to be the cause of and (2) the frequency of the
task that has to be performed.
3.3 (a) Consequences
Consequences are impacts on seafarers’ health (injury) or
impacts on their well being and effectiveness: seafarers
and surveyors can be injured while carrying out a task;
environmental factors such as noise, vibrations or
temperature are likely to impact their well-being and
effectiveness as well causing health troubles such as
musculo-skeletal disorders. Therefore, we group the
consequences that we identified in two categories:
▪ Consequences on seafarers’ health: Minor or
severe burns, blows, entanglement, eye injury,
sprains, fractures, electric shock, total of partial
loss of hearing, total of partial loss of sight,
musculo-skeletal disorders, fatigue, etc.
▪ Consequences on seafarers’ performance:
decrease in the work effectiveness, decrease in
the motivation, decrease in concentration,
decrease in cognitive capacities (slow reasoning,
poor logic, alertness decrease, and erroneous
interpretation of procedures, alarms and
signals), decrease in dynamism, decrease
capacity of error recovery, risk taking
behaviour, etc.
Moreover, through the questionnaire, we associate a
more subjective severity scale to the actions [specific
tasks in specific places] so that hazards are ranked by (1)
consequences on health and/or performance (2) direct
assessment from users. The scale used is:
▪ Very dangerous (fatality, disability)
▪ Rather dangerous (severe injuries)
▪ Not really dangerous (minor injuries)
▪ Not dangerous at all
Thus, we can check the consistency and robustness of the
assessment of consequences.
3.3 (b) Frequencies
The frequencies are mainly taken from the usual
operation, maintenance, repair and inspection tasks. The
sources of data we used to obtain such frequencies are
again expert judgement from user feedback through
interviews and questionnaires but we also used several
maintenance plans of existing vessels. As a rough general
overview of the frequencies, valves are operated several
times a week, seafarers have to read many different
gauges everyday for inspection, checking or monitoring
purposes, safety devices in the main engine room, the
boiler room or the main diesel generators room are
usually maintained on a weekly basis as is cleaning the
means of access and the purifier room and lubrication
operations. Many maintenance operations are performed
on a monthly or yearly basis while repair activities on the
main engines happen more scarcely.
3.3 (c) Risks
Risk measures are derived from the information
organised in the Table 1 hereafter:
Hazards Consequences Frequencies
Trig.
Place Task Cons. Sev. Freq.
factors
Table 1: Data for hazards’ risk-based ranking
3.4 ERGONOMIC / HUMAN FACTORS
ANALYSIS
We found it not possible, relevant or useful to carry out a
full anthropometry analysis for every possible
configuration/type of machinery found on the different
ships types. Moreover, a huge amount of work has been
already done in various industrial areas and in the
maritime industry in relation to the ‘micro’ elements of
the ergonomic design of machinery. There is
consequently a substantial amount of documents related
to designing machinery controls to fit people’s physical
and cognitive needs and capabilities.
Therefore, the novel ergonomic (or human factors) study
we are carrying out deals more with the ‘macro’ aspects
of the engine room arrangements for preventing
occupational hazards. For the ‘micro ‘ aspects we draw
on the existing work and incorporate existing standards,
advice, guidelines, provisions and best practice from
international and national regulatory or standardisation
bodies and the industry in order to achieve these goals,
namely:
▪ IMO requirements from SOLAS, from the
circular on the engine room design [11] as well
as all documents related to the bridge design,
which provide many useful standards and
guidance for the design and arrangement of
engine control rooms.
▪ IACS Unified Interpretations of SOLAS
requirements for the bridge design and Unified
Requirements as well as IACS internal
procedures on the approval of design through
ergonomics.
▪ Bureau Veritas requirements from classification
rules for steel ships and the guidance note for
the design of the means of access.
▪ ILO guidance documents on occupational health
and safety [12] [13] [14] [15].
▪ ISO standards, 14726 on the identification
colours for piping systems, 8861 on the engine
room ventilation, 8862 on the air conditioning
and ventilation of machinery control rooms, and
13407 on the human-centred design processes
for interactive systems, etc.
▪ Standards from the industry; for instance, Shell
design and engineering practice manuals for
human factors engineering.
▪ UK P&I’s website of useful ideas as seen by the
Club’s ship inspectors.
▪ Standards and guidance from the US Navy
health and safety services.
We carried out research in two main categories described
in the sections below: occupational health and safety and
the human machine interaction.
3.4 (a) Occupational Health and Safety (OHS)
Health and safety of the seafarers can be ensured by
addressing environmental factors such as the air quality
and the ventilation, the temperature, the noise and the
vibrations or by the design of the workplace. The former
addresses middle-long term effects of the environment on
health while the latter directly addresses accidents such
as slips, trips and falls.
3.4 (b) The Human Machine Interaction (HMI)
In the machinery spaces, seafarers are constantly
interacting with all the elements and parts constituting
the water, air, fuel, and oil systems directly or, since
vessels are increasingly automated, very often through
switchboards, gauges and many other devices allowing
their control, maintenance, repair and inspection. This
human machine interaction should be addressed during
the design phase in order to mitigate human errors and
ensure the performance of people interacting with them.
In order to derive the design requirements taking into
account this interaction we adopted the three
complementary approaches presented by Folcher and
Rabardel [17]:
▪ The human machine interface approach raises
the question: What are the functionalities
available to the user through the interface?
Criteria for designing a quality interface can be
the self-learning capacity, the quality of displays
and commands, the adaptability to individual
differences, the protection against user errors
and transparency.
▪ The human machine system approach raises the
questions: How does the machine help me to
complete the user’s objectives? In other words,
how does the machine and user cooperate in
order to achieve the user’s goal? For assessing
the HMI, we use some ergonomic criteria such
as those defined by Bastien and Scapin for the
design of interactive software programs [18].
▪ The ‘activity with instruments’ approach raises
the question: How does the machine change the
 user’s activity? This approach considers the
activity of the user and the tasks he has to
perform in order to carry out his duty at work.
3.5 FURTHER WORK
We are currently deriving requirements for the design
and arrangement of the machinery spaces from the
human factors analysis in order to develop a guidance
note. The guidelines are being developed along with the
six main categories addressed in the IMO MSC/Circ.863:
▪ Familiarity
▪ Occupational Health
▪ Ergonomics
▪ Survivability
▪ Minimising risk through design, layout and
arrangement
However, the requirements will be grouped in different
ways depending on their type and the equipment they
address:
▪ By type of equipment
▪ By situations and tasks performed (emergency,
normal operation, repair, maintenance, etc.)
▪ By environment (hot, cold, humid, vibrating
environment, etc.)
▪ By type of vessel
▪ By type of human machine interface for systems
requiring higher detail cognitive task analysis
4. CONCLUSION
A significant amount of work has been done and is being
done on the ways to improve occupational health and
safety in shipping. Nevertheless, there are not only some
areas that still need to be addressed, such as the design
and arrangement of the machinery spaces, but also there
is a need for development of standards that integrate the
numerous different design requirements developed by the
various maritime stakeholders. Through our research we
are therefore trying to develop these standards based on
ergonomics as a common denominator so that
approaches for the design of the means of access, the
machinery spaces, the deck or the bridge are all based on
the same ergonomic principles. However these guidelines
will only have an impact if they are used in the design
phase of a project. If this is the case, they represent an
effective and low cost way to protect seafarers from
occupational accidents, illnesses and to ensure a
comfortable and effective working environment onboard.
Finally, at the time when the maritime sector is
struggling to attract sufficient young people into the
industry, it appears crucial to show the efforts of the
maritime industry to deal with seafarers’ safety and
health aboard merchant vessels.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to acknowledge all the persons who were
interviewed and who responded to the safety assessment
questionnaires, surveyors and BV’s ex-seafaring
personnel in particular. They participated actively in our
research and provided us with some very valuable
feedback of their experience at sea or as design
engineers.
6. REFERENCES
1. IMO, MSC 85/WP.5/Add.1, ‘Goal-based new ship
constructions standards – report of the Working Group’,
December 2008.
2. O. Jensen et al., ‘Non-Fatal Occupational Injuries
Related to Slips, Trips and Falls in Seafaring’, American
journal of industrial medicine 47:161-171, 2005.
3. N. Méry, M. Lassagne, J. McGregor, “Including
ergonomics in the design process to address the risks of
slips, trips and falls: methodology and application,
Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on
Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, 2008.
4. Naval Safety Center website. Acquisition Safety – Fall
Protection, January 2009.
http://safetycenter.navy.mil/acquisition/fall/index.asp
5. IMO, resolution MSC.151(78), ‘Adoption of
amendments to the international convention for the safety
of life at sea, 1974, as amended’, May 2004.
6. IMO, resolution MSC.158(78), ‘Adoption of
amendments to the technical provisions for means of
access for inspections’, May 2004.
7. IACS, UI SC 191, ‘Unified Interpretations for the
application of amended SOLAS regulation II-1/3-6
(resolution MSC.151(78)) and revised Technical
provisions for means of access for inspection (resolution
MSC.158(78)), Revision 3, March 2006.
8. MAIB, ‘Report on the investigation of the work
undertaken in a dangerous enclosed/confined space and
the consequent attempted rescue onboard ERRV Viking
Islay resulting in the loss of three lives at the Amethyst
gas field, 25 miles off the East Yorkshire coast UK 23
September 2007’, July 2008.
9. Bureau Veritas, ‘Guidelines for the Design of the
Means of Access for Inspection, Maintenance and
Operation of Commercial Ships’, NI 537 DT R00 E,
April 2008.
10. IMO, MSC 83/5/7, ‘Goal-based new ship
construction standards – Consideration of GBS and
occupational health and safety’, Submitted by Denmark,
July 2007.

11. IMO, MSC/Circ.834, ‘Guidelines for the engine-

room layout, design and arrangement’, January 1998.

12. ILO – International Occupational Safety and Health

Centre (CIS), ‘International Hazard Datasheets on
Occupation – Ship-Engineer (Machinist)’,
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/cis
/products/hdo/htm/engnr_ship.htm.

13. ILO, ‘Maritime Labour Convention’, 2006.

14. ILO, ‘SafeWork Bookshelf’

http://www.ilo.org/safework_bookshelf/english.

15. ILO, ‘Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and

Safety’, 4th Ed., ILO, Geneva, 1999

16. ANDERSSON, M & LUTZHOFT, M, ‘Engine

control rooms – Human Factors’, Proceedings of the
RINA Human Factors in Ship Design, Safety and
Operation, London, UK, 2007.

17. FLOCHER, V & RABARDEL, P; ‘Hommes,

artefacts, activités: perspective instrumentale’, In
FALZON, P (Coord.), L’ergonomie, pp 251-268, Paris,
France: PUF.

18. BASTIEN, C & SCAPIN, D, ‘La conception de

logiciels interactifs centrés sur l’utilisateur : étapes et
méthodes’, , In FALZON, P (Coord.), L’ergonomie, pp
451-462, Paris, France: PUF.

7. AUTHORS BIOGRAPHY

Nicolas Méry holds the current position of risk and

human factors research engineer at Bureau Veritas (BV)
Marine Division’s Research Department in the Risk,
Sustainability and the Human Element section. He is
responsible for developing BV’s knowledge and
competences on the human element.

Jonathan McGregor holds the current position Head of

the Risk, Sustainability and the Human Element section
at Bureau Veritas (BV) Marine Division’s Research
Department. He is responsible for the development and
management of Bureau Veritas’ research into human,
environmental and asset risk and risk control. His main
area of expertise is risk based design.