The re-design of a marine engine room simulator in consideration to ergonomics design principles

Simulators can be used as sophisticated, flexible and realistic training tools which are capable of meeting many of the designated functions and tasks. An engine room simulator consists of simulation of various machinery systems in the engine room of a ship. This type of simulator is very significant and compulsory for marine engineering education. Istanbul Technical University Maritime Faculty (ITUMF) obtained a set of full-mission simulator and workstation simulators in 2001. However, it was realized that the ergonomic principles were not applied properly. Therefore it was not possible to generate the real engine room conditions with this simulator due to lack of some operations and displays on the mimic panel. Some of the mimics and displays were not similar to ones on board ship. This situation was negatively affecting the performance of engine room simulator training. And the mimic panel was re-designed and installed in 2006. In this study, the ergonomics principles for designing a mimic panel are determined and the application of ergonomic principles to a mimic panel is explained. The ergonomic gains of applied ergonomics principles are mentioned. Even more the effects on the marine engineering education are stated.