OREANDA-NEWS. October 30, 2015. Rolls-Royce Unified Bridge Design has won this year’s Ergonomics Design Award, presented by the UK Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors. The award recognises industrial design which puts the customer at the heart of the process using their views to generate ideas, develop concepts and test prototypes and finished products.

The Unified Bridge is a complete redesign of the ship bridge environment, including consoles, levers and software interfaces, done using a user-centred design process resulting in a more comfortable, clutter-free and ultimately more safe and efficient working environment.

Celebrating the award Svein Kleven, Rolls-Royce, Senior VP Engineering and Quality, Commercial – Marine said, “We are delighted to be recognised for the work we are doing in this area which shows that research and investment in Human-Machine-Interface studies is paying off and leading to new products. Having great technology is good but having great technology that people enjoy using is the way to long-term customer loyalty.”

Interviews with operators and visits to several different types of vessels, as well as on board observations of real life platform supply operations in the North Sea, were carried out in order to understand the work environment and gain insight into life at sea. Realistic simulations in a virtual environment were carried out at Rolls-Royce’s Training and Technology Centre in Aalesund, Norway to investigate operator interaction with equipment, identifying which functions were vital and which could be removed or merged in order to improve operator performance.

The results of this research informed the development of the bridge consoles. Several different prototype iterations of bridge consoles were developed, starting with the use of basic components such as cardboard and sticky notes before moving to polystyrene models and then a full-scale plastic replica which was unveiled at the Nor-Shipping convention in Oslo in May 2011. User feedback based on the plastic prototype was important in the development of prototype consoles.

The first installation of the Rolls-Royce Unified Bridge left port in August 2014 on board the platform supply vessel Stril Luna owned by Simon M?kster Shipping. The operators were equipped with user experience assessment folders, so the Rolls-Royce Unified Bridge can be developed and improved for future customers.

Rolls-Royce had been shortlisted for the award alongside competition from the University of Oxford (patient data display), as well as Ergonomie (Banking services) and DCA Design (Intercity Express Train).

About Rolls-Royce Holdings plc

  1. Rolls-Royce’s vision is to create better power for a changing world via two main business divisions, Aerospace and Land & Sea. These business divisions address markets with two strong technology platforms, gas turbines and reciprocating engines. Aerospace comprises Civil Aerospace and Defence Aerospace. Land & Sea comprises Marine, Nuclear and Power Systems.
  2. Rolls-Royce has customers in more than 120 countries, comprising more than 380 airlines and leasing customers, 160 armed forces, 4,000 marine customers including 70 navies, and more than 5,000 power and nuclear customers.
  3. Our business is focused on the 4Cs:
  • Customer – placing the customer at the heart of our business
  • Concentration – deciding where to grow and where not to
  • Cost – continually looking to increase efficiency
  • Cash – improving financial performance.
  • Annual underlying revenue was ?14.6 billion in 2014, around half of which came from the provision of aftermarket services. The firm and announced order book stood at 76.5 billion at 30 June 2015.
  • In 2014, Rolls-Royce invested ?1.2 billion on research and development. We also support a global network of 31 University Technology Centres, which position Rolls-Royce engineers at the forefront of scientific research.
  • Rolls-Royce employs over 54,000 people in more than 50 countries. Over 15,500 of these are engineers.
  • The Group has a strong commitment to apprentice and graduate recruitment and to further developing employee skills. In 2014 we employed 354 graduates and 357 apprentices through our worldwide training programmes. Globally we have over 1,000 Rolls-Royce STEM ambassadors who are actively involved in education programmes and activities; we have set ourselves a target to reach 6 million people through our STEM outreach activities by 2020.

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