A Study on FSA Application for Human Errors of Dynamic Positioning Vessels Incidents

Abstract

Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) has been mostly implemented on the hardware aspects of vessels. Although there are guidelines regarding human error FSAs, there have not been many assessments in such areas. To this end, this study seeks to use precedent studies for the safe operation of DP vessels, conducting an FSA regarding human error of DP LOP (Loss of Position) incidents. For this, the study referred to precedent studies for the frequency of DP LOP incidents caused by human errors, adding the severity of LOP incidents, and then applying them to the Bayesian network. As a result, the study was able to confirm that among DP LOP incidents caused by human errors, the drive-off from skill-based errors was 74.3% and the drive-off from unsafe supervision was 50.5%. Based on such results, RCOs (Risk Control Options) were devised through a brainstorming session with experts coming up with proposals including providing mandatory DPO training, installing DP simulator on the vessels, drawing up measures to understanding the procedures for safe operation of DP vessels. Moreover, it was found that mandatory DPO training is reasonable in terms of cost benefits and that while installing a DP simulator is not suitable in terms of cost benefits, it can significantly reduce risks when operating DP vessels.