EU-funded R&D Produces New Ship Bridge Designs
A three-year EU-funded project, CASCADe, has developed new methodologies in which information is shared and displayed on a ship’s bridge, helping to improve efficiency on board and contribute toward the prevention of accidents at sea. Drawing directly from the experience of seafarers, CASCADe has developed a new adaptive bridge design methodology that treats both human agents and electronic equipment as parts of a cooperative system. This allows for the sharing of information to be optimized. In addition, CASCADe has developed a set of adaptive bridge displays.
Busan Port Names Woo Ye-jong as New CEO
The Busan Port Authority (BPA) announced Woo Ye-jong has been named as its new CEO, as appointed by the Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. Woo took office on July 31, 2015 and will serve for a three year term. He succeeds Lim Ki-tack who will take over as Secretary General at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in January 2016. On taking his new role, Woo said, “My focus as CEO will be on strengthening the port’s competiveness by improving efficiency and keeping control of costs. Woo is keen to work closely with the port’s terminal operators and to reflect their ideas and opinions in BPA’s future strategy. BPA said it will also help relieve some of the burden currently facing its terminal operators, particularly issues that have the potential to result in job losses.
Mike Robinson Appointed LR Customer Strategy Director
Lloyd’s Register (LR) has appointed Mike Robinson to the newly created role of Group Customer Strategy Director. He will guide and support the group’s businesses in designing, developing and implementing programs to meet the organization’s business objectives through customer segmentation, customer care and the effective use of key account strategies. Robinson started at LR on September 2, 2013 and brings extensive experience and expertise from a long career with blue chip companies. He joins LR from Royal Mail Group, where he was leading Group Strategy.
Integrated Bridge Shaping the Future
While the Integrated Bridge increasingly plays a bigger role in various shipbuilding programs, in many cases the degree of integration can be limited and does not allows a fully functional integration of different navigation systems or further ship systems on the bridge. In tandem there has been an increasing demand for higher level integrated bridge systems, which was reasonably driven by more sophisticated and safety-sensitive vessels such as cruise ships, specialized vessels and few oil tankers.
New R&D Project to Help Enhance Maritime Safety
Almost 80% of collisions and groundings occur due to a failure of bridge systems and their usage. A new three-year European research project, part funded by the EU has been launched to help increase safety onboard vessels. CASCADe, (model-based Cooperative and Adaptive ship-based Context Aware Design) aims to address the lack of symbiosis which exists between current bridge design, operational procedures and the end user. In the maritime environment there is a proliferation of increasingly complex technology. Studies have shown that the use of instruments with a range of different user interfaces or the provision of too much information can lead to errors and a reduction in performance.
