Survey of Maritime Experiences in Reduced Workload and Staffing

The U.S. Coast Guard is in the Concept Exploration Phase of its Integrated Deepwater System IDS acquisition. This project will define the next generation of surface, air and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, sensors, and reconnaissance C4ISR assets used to perform the Coast Guards missions in the Deepwater environment 50 NM off the U.S. coastline. A ships crew represents a major life cycle cost of operating and maintaining a USCG ship. Reducing shipboard work requires an understanding of the mission and support requirements placed on the ship and its crew how these requirements are currently met and how requirements might otherwise be met to reduce workload and crew size. The objective of this effort was to support the development of an optimized crewing strategy for the surface platform of the IDS by surveying work reducing approaches of other maritime fleets foreign coast guards and navies, and commercial fleets. From the data collected, strategies for shipboard work reduction that may be considered for adoption by the Deepwater Project were identified and analyzed according to performance and costs factors. Each strategy developed during the effort was based on the approaches and techniques observed by the maritime organizations surveyed.