“The helm is lost!”: Reframing psychological matters in non-routine technologically mediated interaction in a maritime context

The maritime industry is a dangerous and highly technologically saturated sector. Unfortunately, advancement in automation and technology have not minimised human error as intended. Interaction between humans and technology in the industry is also overtly pre-scripted. The main reason for this is to reduce human error by ensuring predictability in interaction. Ultimately, investigations of non-routine interaction are often based on a hindsight view of what went wrong in a given situation. This article analyses a collection of non-routine interactions that derive from a larger data corpus, using Discursive Psychology and Conversation Analysis. It argues that such a study can capture what is missing from some investigations, namely, what makes sense for crews in the context of a given non-routine situation. Despite the constraints and the challenges of technological complexity, this article argues that reframing psychological matters in non-routine technologically mediated interaction can be a new way of showing how such matters are dynamic, visible and manageable. This can inform the general debate of how to minimise human error, and more specifically, provide insight into the increasing inclusion of technology and as a consequence, the equally increasing amount of technologically mediated interaction that we will see in the future.

Standardized Comparison of Processing Capacity and Efficiency of Five New-Generation Immunoassay Analyzers

Background: With the trend toward laboratory and workstation consolidation, more studies are necessary to evaluate instrumentation, solutions for coping with workflow and test diversity, and opportunities for increasing the overall efficiency of laboratory testing. We assessed the processing capacity and efficiency of new-generation immunoassay analyzers by determining productivity parameters of five commercially available systems. Methods: A workload protocol was developed and used to assess processing capacity and efficiency parameters of five immunoassay analyzers under standardized conditions in a real-life routine situation. We studied the ACS:Centaur® (analyzer A), ArchitectTMi2000 (analyzer B), Elecsys® 2010 tandem (analyzer C), Immulite® 2000 (analyzer D), and Vitros ECi (analyzer E) on the basis of a standardized workload protocol that reflected a routine laboratory situation. This workload encompassed reflex and STAT testing, dilutions, and in-run calibration of a new reagent lot number. The analyzers were compared for hands-on labor time, unattended time (UT), throughput, and differentiated relative productivity indexes [RPI(UT); number of reportable results/(processing time − sum of unattended time)]. The RPI data for analyzers linked to an automated (aut) sample-handling system [RPI(aut)] were also calculated. Results: The evaluation produced a set of parameters for the productivity of the instruments. An overview of the most important parameters revealed the following: the throughput was 193, 123, 97, 109, and 46 tests/hour for instruments A, B, C, D and E, respectively; the RPI(10) was 425, 238, 161, 445, and 151 tests/operator-hour; the RPI(30) was 229, 136, 118, 264, and 86 tests/operator-hour; the RPI(10,aut) was 1701, 637, 235, 964, and 223 tests/operator-hour; and the RPI(30,aut) was 298, 150, 174, 400, and 114 tests/operator-hour. Conclusions: The combination of a standardized workload protocol and determination of parameters for productivity and labor efficiency, especially the differentiated RPIs, made it possible to make an objective comparison of the organizational consequences of the use of these instruments. The described parameters allow for a scientifically based choice, given a certain workflow and a particular laboratory organization.