Safety of work on board ships and in shore-based units depends to a great extent on individuals having different characters, level of competence and, very often, cultural level. In order to learn how to plan and manage safety, it is necessary to learn how to manage activities of individuals and how to quantify the human factor. Based on the results of scientific research conducted by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping in cooperation with the State Maritime Academy named after S. O. Makarov, an indirect method of human factor consideration in the shipping companies has been developed. The basis of the method is analysis and consideration of the factors prevailing in the safety management system and following definitions: human factor is a manifestation of human activity under the effect of prevailing factors; indirect method of human factor consideration is a quantitative evaluation of a degree of a human factor impact on safe operation of ships through SMS, determination and consideration of prevailing factors in the course of ship operation; prevailing factors are the factors out of a set of those that exist at the moment and exert the major influence on a human being; destabilizing factors are prevailing factors under the effect of which probability of a human error increases; subjective factors is subjective part of logical thinking of any human being inherent to him in decisionmaking; SMS key area is one of the functioning areas of the shipping company's SMS, which has functional meaning for assuring human being activity; "SMS perfection level" is a quantitative characteristic of the shipping company SMS condition which shows the level of its excellence. An approach to the human factor from the viewpoint of analysis of factors affecting a person during execution of some work or making decisions allows to reveal those factors that mostly become apparent during an investigation of casualties and is line with the general concept of a human factor that is described in Resolution A.884(21). The diagram of mutual influence of different factors is shown in Fig.1. At any point of time any person is under the influence of multitude of factors affecting him - prevailing factors or those factors, which pass without leaving a trace- neutral factors that may turn into a multitude of prevailing factors when conditions change. Prevailing factors may have positive (good professional training, good rest, good relations in the crew, etc.) and negative influence (lack of experience, absence of mutual understanding in the crew, strong vibration of hull) on a person and this leads to reduced capability to work and ability to evaluate situation adequately, and to make the right decision, as well as increases probability of making a mistake.
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