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The effects of team co-location and reduced crewing on team communication characteristics

The effects of team co-location and reduced crewing on team communication characteristics
The effects of team co-location and reduced crewing on team communication characteristics
The manner in which control rooms are configured can impact the flow of information between command teams. Previous research revealed bottlenecks of communications between the Sonar Controller (SOC) and the Operations Officer (OPSO) in submarine control rooms. One way to relieve such bottlenecks is to co-locate operators reliant on one another for task relevant information. The aim of the current studies was to use multiple command teams to empirically examine a novel submarine control room configuration and a reduced crew size in comparison to a baseline of contemporary operations to see if such bottlenecks could be removed. Ten teams performed high and low demand Dived Tracking (DT) scenarios in a simulated submarine control room. Activities and communications of the teams were recorded and quantified using the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method affording statistical comparisons with a baseline condition of contemporary operations. The findings showed that the co-location of operators relieved the bottleneck of communications between the SOC and the OPSO. Although overall communications increased, this was more balanced across the team and was more adaptive to scenario demand. This was coupled with a significant increase in task completion, even with a reduced crew size, suggesting greater efficiency and productivity. Future research should seek to validate the changes observed with objective measures of task performance.
0003-6870
Roberts, Aaron P.J.
a2fb35d9-a42f-4a07-848d-01cecae9d893
Stanton, Neville A.
351a44ab-09a0-422a-a738-01df1fe0fadd
Fay, Daniel T.
7db57379-3af4-4554-9358-717ffec9df48
Pope, Kiome A.
e93da0b1-5be5-405e-9229-0ac3aa6f42b9
Roberts, Aaron P.J.
a2fb35d9-a42f-4a07-848d-01cecae9d893
Stanton, Neville A.
351a44ab-09a0-422a-a738-01df1fe0fadd
Fay, Daniel T.
7db57379-3af4-4554-9358-717ffec9df48
Pope, Kiome A.
e93da0b1-5be5-405e-9229-0ac3aa6f42b9

Roberts, Aaron P.J., Stanton, Neville A., Fay, Daniel T. and Pope, Kiome A. (2019) The effects of team co-location and reduced crewing on team communication characteristics. Applied Ergonomics, 81, [102875]. (doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2019.102875).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The manner in which control rooms are configured can impact the flow of information between command teams. Previous research revealed bottlenecks of communications between the Sonar Controller (SOC) and the Operations Officer (OPSO) in submarine control rooms. One way to relieve such bottlenecks is to co-locate operators reliant on one another for task relevant information. The aim of the current studies was to use multiple command teams to empirically examine a novel submarine control room configuration and a reduced crew size in comparison to a baseline of contemporary operations to see if such bottlenecks could be removed. Ten teams performed high and low demand Dived Tracking (DT) scenarios in a simulated submarine control room. Activities and communications of the teams were recorded and quantified using the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method affording statistical comparisons with a baseline condition of contemporary operations. The findings showed that the co-location of operators relieved the bottleneck of communications between the SOC and the OPSO. Although overall communications increased, this was more balanced across the team and was more adaptive to scenario demand. This was coupled with a significant increase in task completion, even with a reduced crew size, suggesting greater efficiency and productivity. Future research should seek to validate the changes observed with objective measures of task performance.

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Roberts_The effects of team co-location and reduced crewing on team communication characteristics - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 7 June 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 3 July 2019
Published date: 1 November 2019

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 432714
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/432714
ISSN: 0003-6870
PURE UUID: f2031aa3-0a3d-4890-a418-daa0c7bfd05c
ORCID for Neville A. Stanton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8562-3279
ORCID for Kiome A. Pope: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8076-960X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 24 Jul 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 07:59

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Contributors

Author: Daniel T. Fay
Author: Kiome A. Pope ORCID iD

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