According to Software Quality Assurance (SQA) and the Human Centred Design (HCD) guidelines for e-navigation by Maritime Safety Committee of International Maritime Organization, software quality related activities and practices will be in demand in the maritime field. To provide high quality software and a usable system to users, e-navigation SQA is supported by Republic of Korea. After merging with the HCD as suggested by Australia, it has been endorsed as IMO Circ.1512 in June 2015. To apply SQA to the maritime industry, it needs to achieve the current status of maritime software related industries. This article introduces the IMO Circ.1512 and the progress of e-navigation SQA so far including the international workshop held in Busan, Korea as previous accomplishments. Also, the result of a survey on the status of software quality management of the Korean domestic maritime IT related industry will be described. The purpose of survey is to find out how SQA is dealt with in domestic industry, what experiences the industry have had so far and what software project related issues they have. The questionnaire is composed of two parts. The first part mainly deals with fundamental knowledge about the scale of the company and the number of development teams s. The second part consists of three sub-parts with Quality Management, Configuration Management, and Process Management. Otherwise, several questions are surveyed with respect to engineering tools for SQA and education support. Approximately 150 cases were gathered. The outcome of the survey shows some points that both of industry and government can contemplate for the future.
The Korean e-Navigation system is a Korean approach to correspond with implementation of IMO e-Navigation. It provides five services, among them SV20 service, a ship remote monitoring system that collects and processes sensor information related to fire, navigation, and seakeeping performance safety. The system also detects abnormal conditions such as fires, capsizing, sinking, navigation equipment failure during navigation, and calculates the safety index and determines the emergency level. According to emergency level, it provides appropriate emergency response guidance for the onboard operator. The fire safety module is composed of three sub-modules; each module is the safety index sub-module, the emergency level determination sub-module and emergency response guidance sub-module. In this study, operational concept of the fire safety module in SV20 service is explained, and fire safety assessment factors are estimated, to calculate the fire safety index. Fire assessment factors included ‘Fire detector position factor,’ ‘Smoke diffusion rate factor,’ and ‘Fire-fighting facilities factor.’
IMO introduced the concept of e-Navigation and proposed MSPs(Maritime Service Portfolios) concept to reduce marine accidents, to improve efficiency of ship operation, port operation, and ship operation technology. Korean e-Navigation defines S1 ~ S5 services, as the service concept focused on domestic e-Navigation service corresponding to IMO MSPs, and is constructing a system as an ongoing project. S2 service (onboard system remote monitoring service) among the concepts of Korean e-Navigation services, is a service concept that judges the emergency level according to risk if an abnormal condition occurs during navigation, and provides corresponding guidance to accident ships based on emergency level. The purpose of this paper is to provide a basic architecture proposal of Korean e-Navigation S2 service navigation safety module, based on the S2 service operation concept. To do this, we conducted a questionnaire survey to ask experts with experience with sailors, to respond to the subjective risk experienced by sailors considering effects of anomalies, including equipment failure relative to sailing and navigational safety. Risk level for each abnormal condition was classified. The basic algorithm design of the navigation safety module is composed of safety index (SI) calculation module based on results of questionnaire and expert opinions, safety level (SL) determination module according to safety index, and corresponding guidance generation module according to safety level. To conduct basic validation of basic architecture of the navigation safety module, simulation of the ship anomaly monitoring was performed, and results have been revealed.
IMO introduced e-Navigation concept to improve the efficiency of ship operation, port operation, and ship navigation technology. IMO proposed sixteen MSPs (Maritime Service Portfolio) applicable to the ships and onshore in case of e-Navigation implementation. In order to meet the demands of the international society, the system implementation work for the Korean e-Navigation has been specified. The Korean e-Navigation system has five service categories: the S2 service category, which is a ship anomaly monitoring service, is a service that classifies emergency levels according to the degree of abnormal condition when a ship has an abnormality in ship operation, and provides guidance for emergency situations. The navigation safety module is a sub-module of the S2 service that determines the emergency level in case of navigation equipment malfunctioning, engine or steering gear failure during navigation. It provides emergency response guidance based on emergency level to the abnormal ship. If an abnormal condition occurs during the ship operation, first, the ship shall determine the emergency level, according to the degree of abnormality of the ship. Second, an emergency response guidance is generated based on the determined emergency level, and the guidance is transmitted to the ship, which helps the navigators prevent accidents and not to spread. In this study, the operational concept for the implementation of the Korean e-Navigation system is designed and the concept is focused on the navigation safety module of S2 service.