Engine Room Resource Management and Teamwork
This domain assesses non-technical skills in the machinery space: situational awareness, communication, leadership, fatigue management and decision-making under pressure.
The elements
Situational awareness, communication, teamwork, leadership, fatigue and stress management, and decision-making. Engine room resource management is the machinery-space counterpart of bridge resource management and is examined through scenario questions.
Communication
Closed-loop communication: the receiver repeats the instruction back and confirms when it is done. Challenge and response: a junior officer must be able to say 'I do not agree' or 'please confirm' without being silenced. Briefings before critical operations such as bunkering, tank entry and manoeuvring, and debriefings afterwards.
Authority gradient
Too steep and nobody speaks up; too flat and decisions become unclear. The chief engineer sets the tone by inviting challenge explicitly.
Worked example
During a fuel transfer the port bunker tank high-level alarm sounds. Effective response: the watchkeeper informs the transfer team in closed loop, stops the transfer pump, closes the valve, checks the overflow tank and scuppers, reports to the chief engineer and the bridge, then records the event and holds a short debrief. Ineffective response: one person runs to the tank, nobody stops the pump, and the deck team is never told.
Traps
Assuming a message was heard because it was sent; letting rank stop a safety challenge; treating fatigue as a personal weakness rather than a management issue; skipping the debrief so the same error recurs next voyage.