A decision-making framework for assessing the safety culture of maritime organizations with commercial cargo-carrying vessels

Maritime safety culture is currently one of the most important aspects of shipping. It enables maritime administrators to assess and manage safety-related issues proactively. However, most maritime organisations have not been able to effectively assess and manage safety-related issues proactively because of the challenges associated with the availability of safety performance data and the suitability of correlational statistical techniques used in safety culture assessments. Hence, researchers and professionals constantly debate which correlational statistical technique would be most suitable for assessing safety culture. This thesis aims to contribute to safety culture assessment from a methodological perspective of developing a decision-making framework for assessing maritime safety culture. Therefore, this PhD study offers an original contribution to knowledge regarding the application of decision-making techniques in a way that researchers have not previously done in assessing the safety culture of maritime organisations with commercial cargo-carrying vessels. Consequently, the integrated decision-making methodology adopted for this study entailed: the application of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in establishing weightage and priority setting of safety factors used in further assessments; the application of Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) in establishing the weighted safety climate performance of both shoreside staff and shipboard staff; the application of Pareto analysis in justifying the findings of the weighted safety climate and gaining insights into issues concerning occupational health and safety, ship safety, and shore-to-ship safety; and the application of Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) in scheduling vessels for safety culture improvement programs. The established weightage and priority setting of safety factors are: COMMUNICATION (COM) 0.15, EMPOWERMENT (EMP) 0.13, FEEDBACK (FDB) 0.11, MUTUAL TRUST (MTR) 0.11, PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION (PID) 0.13, PROMOTION OF SAFETY (POS) 0.12, RESPONSIVENESS (RSP) 0.11, and SAFETY AWARENESS (SAW) 0.14. Subsequently, the weighted safety climate performance of shoreside staff were: (COM) 0.651, EMPOWERMENT (EMP) 0.528, FEEDBACK (FDB) 0.418, MUTUAL TRUST (MTR) 0.365, PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION (PID) 0.543, PROMOTION OF SAFETY (POS) 0.451, RESPONSIVENESS (RSP) 0.448, and SAFETY AWARENESS (SAW) 0.515; while those of shipboard staff were: COMMUNICATION (COM) 0.570, EMPOWERMENT (EMP) 0.523, FEEDBACK (FDB) 0.432, MUTUAL TRUST (MTR) 0.419, PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION (PID) 0.517, PROMOTION OF SAFETY (POS) 0.458, RESPONSIVENESS (RSP) 0.441, and SAFETY AWARENESS (SAW) 0.601. Furthermore, Pareto analysis revealed that amongst all the feedback statements reviewed, MUTUAL TRUST (MTR) represents 30% of the safety factors attributed to feedback statements that are responsible for 70% of the least performing safety factors found in the weighted safety climate of shipboard staff, while PROMOTION OF SAFETY (POS) and PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION (PID) represent 30% of the safety factors attributed to feedback statements that are responsible for 70% of the least performing safety factors found in the weighted safety climate of shipboard staff. Finally, the TOPSIS methodology was applied to provide maritime administrators with a vessel's ranking, from the least performing to the most performing, for safety culture improvement programs as follows: MT DIDI (0.0908), MT SEA ADVENTURER (0.1124), MT SEAS GRACE (0.1726), MT UMBALWA (0.1815), MT SEA PROGRESS (0.2307), MT SEA VOYAGER (0.3816), MT ASHABI (0.4693), MT MOSUNMOLA (0.5365), MT AMIF (0.9243), and MT KINGIS (1.0000). Conclusively, this thesis adequately demonstrates how decision-making techniques can be simply and successfully applied in assessing the safety culture of maritime organisations without encountering the challenges associated with the availability of safety performance data and the suitability of correlational statistical techniques. It also demonstrated how safety culture could be assessed and managed like other areas of the organisation and business: thereby making safety culture more assessable to continuous improvement programs of maritime organisations with commercial cargo-carrying vessels.Maritime safety culture is currently one of the most important aspects of shipping. It enables maritime administrators to assess and manage safety-related issues proactively. However, most maritime organisations have not been able to effectively assess and manage safety-related issues proactively because of the challenges associated with the availability of safety performance data and the suitability of correlational statistical techniques used in safety culture assessments. Hence, researchers and professionals constantly debate which correlational statistical technique would be most suitable for assessing safety culture. This thesis aims to contribute to safety culture assessment from a methodological perspective of developing a decision-making framework for assessing maritime safety culture. Therefore, this PhD study offers an original contribution to knowledge regarding the application of decision-making techniques in a way that researchers have not previously done in assessing the safety culture of maritime organisations with commercial cargo-carrying vessels. Consequently, the integrated decision-making methodology adopted for this study entailed: the application of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in establishing weightage and priority setting of safety factors used in further assessments; the application of Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) in establishing the weighted safety climate performance of both shoreside staff and shipboard staff; the application of Pareto analysis in justifying the findings of the weighted safety climate and gaining insights into issues concerning occupational health and safety, ship safety, and shore-to-ship safety; and the application of Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) in scheduling vessels for safety culture improvement programs. The established weightage and priority setting of safety factors are: COMMUNICATION (COM) 0.15, EMPOWERMENT (EMP) 0.13, FEEDBACK (FDB) 0.11, MUTUAL TRUST (MTR) 0.11, PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION (PID) 0.13, PROMOTION OF SAFETY (POS) 0.12, RESPONSIVENESS (RSP) 0.11, and SAFETY AWARENESS (SAW) 0.14. Subsequently, the weighted safety climate performance of shoreside staff were: (COM) 0.651, EMPOWERMENT (EMP) 0.528, FEEDBACK (FDB) 0.418, MUTUAL TRUST (MTR) 0.365, PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION (PID) 0.543, PROMOTION OF SAFETY (POS) 0.451, RESPONSIVENESS (RSP) 0.448, and SAFETY AWARENESS (SAW) 0.515; while those of shipboard staff were: COMMUNICATION (COM) 0.570, EMPOWERMENT (EMP) 0.523, FEEDBACK (FDB) 0.432, MUTUAL TRUST (MTR) 0.419, PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION (PID) 0.517, PROMOTION OF SAFETY (POS) 0.458, RESPONSIVENESS (RSP) 0.441, and SAFETY AWARENESS (SAW) 0.601. Furthermore, Pareto analysis revealed that amongst all the feedback statements reviewed, MUTUAL TRUST (MTR) represents 30% of the safety factors attributed to feedback statements that are responsible for 70% of the least performing safety factors found in the weighted safety climate of shipboard staff, while PROMOTION OF SAFETY (POS) and PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION (PID) represent 30% of the safety factors attributed to feedback statements that are responsible for 70% of the least performing safety factors found in the weighted safety climate of shipboard staff. Finally, the TOPSIS methodology was applied to provide maritime administrators with a vessel's ranking, from the least performing to the most performing, for safety culture improvement programs as follows: MT DIDI (0.0908), MT SEA ADVENTURER (0.1124), MT SEAS GRACE (0.1726), MT UMBALWA (0.1815), MT SEA PROGRESS (0.2307), MT SEA VOYAGER (0.3816), MT ASHABI (0.4693), MT MOSUNMOLA (0.5365), MT AMIF (0.9243), and MT KINGIS (1.0000). Conclusively, this thesis adequately demonstrates how decision-making techniques can be simply and successfully applied in assessing the safety culture of maritime organisations without encountering the challenges associated with the availability of safety performance data and the suitability of correlational statistical techniques. It also demonstrated how safety culture could be assessed and managed like other areas of the organisation and business: thereby making safety culture more assessable to continuous improvement programs of maritime organisations with commercial cargo-carrying vessels

PBL Student Projects and Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study

Working with the Sustainable Development Goals can be a highly motivating factor in Problem Based Learning, especially if the solutions produced can be used afterwards and have an actual impact on people and communities. This paper describes how three engineering students from Aalborg University, Denmark, collaborated with the South African Organisation Green Shoots on bringing IT-supported Math education out to some of the most disadvantaged learners from townships and rural areas of the Western Cape. The project provided the Danish students with a unique learning experience and have a lasting impact on the communities involved. While the content of the project focused on bringing IT-supported Math education to learners in previously disadvantaged areas around the Western Cape, the project also provided valuable insight into how such students’ projects, where the outcomes benefit people and communities suffering from socio-economic challenges e.g. poverty, can be carried out. In addition to demonstrate that such projects are actually possible, we studied three critical aspects: How to ensure a good fit between learning objectives and project outcome, how to ensure that the project creates value for the partner organisation and communities, and how to ensure that the projects can be conducted without overloading the university supervisors. We believe that student projects focusing on SDGs have a big potential in terms of providing highly motivating student projects yet at the same time contribute to a better world through solutions that are being used even afterwards. However, our study was just a single case with one group of three students. We hope it will serve as inspiration for larger studies, where more quantitative data could be gathered in terms of how to establish a good framework around such projects, and in order to demonstrate the value for students and societies

International Student Projects and Sustainable Development Goals: A Perfect Match

Engineering Education is currently going through a transformation, driven by the need for educating better engineers and more engineers, and largely build on elements such as problem orientation, interdisciplinarity, internationalization, digitalization and sustainability. In 2020, the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership EPIC (Improving Employability Through Internationalization and Collaboration) has combined all these elements, and demonstrated how international and interdisciplinary student projects, focusing on solving real-world problems related to sustainability, can be carried out in a setting where students mainly work together online. A total of 56 students from 7 EU and 2 international universities, with backgrounds ranging from Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering to Textile Technologies and Business Informatics were working on 9 different projects throughout the spring of 2020. The paper presents the experiences from the setup and discusses some general recommendations for setting up this type of projects. The paper goes through the stages of defining and carrying out the projects: Defining the overall framework, identifying problems/project proposals in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, identifying the students and assigning students to projects, preparing students and supervisors, organising the physical kick-off seminar, and supporting the online collaboration. We also discuss evaluation and hand-over of the solutions, to ensure the projects have a lasting impact. We conclude that the sustainable development goals provide a highly motivating framework for interdisciplinary, international student projects based on problem-based learning. We also note that a careful design and execution of the all the preparatory stages are crucial in order for the projects to succeed, and discuss specific recommendations for these.</p

Challenges for engineering students working with authentic complex problems

Engineers are important participants in solving societal, environmental and technical problems. However, due to an increasing complexity in relation to these problems new interdisciplinary competences are needed in engineering. Instead of students working with monodisciplinary problems, a situation where students work with authentic complex problems in interdisciplinary teams together with a company may scaffold development of new competences. The question is: What are the challenges for students structuring the work on authentic interdisciplinary problems? This study explores a three-day event where 7 students from Aalborg University (AAU) from four different faculties and one student from University College North Denmark (UCN), (6th-10th semester), worked in two groups at a large Danish company, solving authentic complex problems. The event was structured as a Hackathon where the students for three days worked with problem identification, problem analysis and finalizing with a pitch competition presenting their findings. During the event the students had workshops to support the work and they had the opportunity to use employees from the company as facilitators. It was an extracurricular activity during the summer holiday season. The methodology used for data collection was qualitative both in terms of observations and participants’ reflection reports. The students were observed during the whole event. Findings from this part of a larger study indicated, that students experience inability to transfer and transform project competences from their previous disciplinary experiences to an interdisciplinary setting

Critical Thinking Skills Profile of High School Students In Learning Science-Physics

This study aims to describe Critical Thinking Skills high school students in the city of Makassar. To achieve this goal, the researchers conducted an analysis of student test results of 200 people scattered in six schools in the city of Makassar. The results of the quantitative descriptive analysis of the data found that the average value of students doing the interpretation, analysis, and inference in a row by 1.53, 1.15, and 1.52. This value is still very low when compared with the maximum value that may be obtained by students, that is equal to 10.00. This shows that the critical thinking skills of high school students are still very low. One fact Competency Standards science subjects-Physics is demonstrating the ability to think logically, critically, and creatively with the guidance of teachers and demonstrate the ability to solve simple problems in daily life. In fact, according to Michael Scriven stated that the main task of education is to train students and or students to think critically because of the demands of work in the global economy, the survival of a democratic and personal decisions and decisions in an increasingly complex society needs people who can think well and make judgments good. Therefore, the need for teachers in the learning device scenario such as: driving question or problem, authentic Investigation: Science Processes

Exploring the practical use of a collaborative robot for academic purposes

This article presents a set of experiences related to the setup and exploration of potential educational uses of a collaborative robot (cobot). The basic principles that have guided the work carried out have been three. First and foremost, study of all the functionalities offered by the robot and exploration of its potential academic uses both in subjects focused on industrial robotics and in subjects of related disciplines (automation, communications, computer vision). Second, achieve the total integration of the cobot at the laboratory, seeking not only independent uses of it but also seeking for applications (laboratory practices) in which the cobot interacts with some of the other devices already existing at the laboratory (other industrial robots and a flexible manufacturing system). Third, reuse of some available components and minimization of the number and associated cost of required new components. The experiences, carried out following a project-based learning methodology under the framework of bachelor and master subjects and thesis, have focused on the integration of mechanical, electronic and programming aspects in new design solutions (end effector, cooperative workspace, artificial vision system integration) and case studies (advanced task programming, cybersecure communication, remote access). These experiences have consolidated the students' acquisition of skills in the transition to professional life by having the close collaboration of the university faculty with the experts of the robotics company.Postprint (published version