A review of human error in marine engine maintenance

Maritime safety involves minimizing error in all aspects of the marine system. Human error has received much importance, being responsible for about 80% of the maritime accident worldwide. Currently, more attention has been focused to reduce human error in marine engine maintenance. On-board marine engine maintenance activities are often complex, where seafarers conduct maintenance activities in various marine environmental (i.e. extreme weather, ship motions, noise, and vibration) and operational (i.e. work overload and stress) conditions. These environmental and operational conditions, in combination with generic human error tendencies, results in innumerable forms of error. There are numerous accidents that happened due to the human error during the maintenance activities of a marine engine. The most severe human error results in accidents due to is a loss of life. Moreover, there are other consequences too such as delaying the productivity of marine operations which results in the financial loss. This study reviews methods that are currently available for identifying, reporting and managing human error in marine engine maintenance. As a basis for this discussion, authors provide an overview of approaches for investigating human error, and a description of marine engine maintenance activities and environmental and operational characteristics.