Modelling complexity in everyday operations: functional resonance in maritime mooring at quay

Maritime operations are complex socio-technical activities, with many interacting agents. Such agents are acting based on different, sometimes conflicting, goals. The traditional approach for safety, based on decomposition and bimodality, might lead to ineffective analyses, ignoring the transient and hidden links among activities as they are performed in everyday work. In this sense, the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) offers a representation of work-as-done, acknowledging variability as unavoidable and desirable in order to avoid failures and maintain production. This paper adopts FRAM in combination with an Abstraction/Agency framework to understand and contribute with new perspectives to the complexity of processes. This approach, in line with the principles of Resilience Engineering, is adopted in the traditionally underspecified operation of mooring at quay. The detailed model confirms the benefits of FRAM in representing complex highly coupled tasks, especially in combination with an analysis at different levels of abstractions. The outcomes of the study show how a FRAM model offers systemic and punctual insights for understanding emergent criticalities, analysing complex incident scenarios, identifying potential mitigating actions, exploring different varieties of work and gaining systemic knowledge.