Integration Work on the Ship’s Bridge

Abstract

As technology on board gets more automated and integrated there is the hope that seafarers will do less work. But as seen in other domains, as ships become more automated it seems that operators perform more and different work, for which many of them are ill prepared. We describe here the results of a field study on Swedish ships. With today’s technologies, seafarers on ships with (and without) integrated bridge and navigation systems have to perform less manual work but more integration work. Integration work, as we define the term, is a process, initiated and driven by the seafarer. In particular, it is working proactively to construct a workplace that ‘works’ for them, given their tasks and duties. The paper discusses whether workload has really been reduced or only shifted to another mode or form.