Fire, collision damage, and flooding can be catastrophic events for a Navy ship. New trends in reduced manning for crews called for a much different approach to handling these hazards. Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren retained the CSE Group to explore options to minimize the risks, and unintended consequences, of reduced manning on Navy ships through the development of a decision support tool for use in damage control.

Based on CTA findings, the ARA team developed a simulation of a complicated, real-life damage control incident. That permitted “what-if” gaming of resource allocation, with the ability run in full or reduced manning modes, to compare the damage control effectiveness of each mode on essential ship functions.

 

For the shipboard Damage Control Assistant (DCA ) to maintain good situation awareness (SA) during damage control incidents, ARA used cognitive systems engineering to minimize data extraneous to the DC effort. This enabled DC Central staff to actively communicate their individual situational analysis (SA) and develop a shared SA among the entire DC team.

The project represented a first step to identify the cognitive demands of the DC Central staff, and provide support for their decisions.