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Fires on RoPax ships can be very challenging and may inflict serious damage both to life,environment and property. The SEBRA project explored two different research themesthrough interviews and observations on four larger RoPax ships – firstly, the interactionbetween the crew, installations and environments relevant for fire protection, secondly,what governs the design of fire protective installations and working environmentsonboard.The study shows that proactive fire safety is a continuous process where the crews appliesmany different types of knowledge and experience. Several of the success factors identifiedin the study can be linked to prior research on resilient performance in critical operationsi.e. properties that allow people to deal with problems that are surprising and donot fully match existing routines.Key factors for good performance in the case of fire are good working conditions andeffective training, meaning working environments, systems, organizations and routinesthat fit the needs of the crew. However, the present study shows that a holistic approachis rarely applied to fire safety. Safety Management has a reactive bias, a clear focus oncompliance and pays limited attention to usability as a driver for safety. Observationsresulted in several findings of poor design that could undermine performance in the caseof a real fire.Flaws in fire safety design can be traced to the overall processes of ship design, buildingand revision. Ship design is a processed closely focused on cost and technical demands,rarely concerned with user needs and characteristics. When the fire protection consultantbecomes involved, many important design parameters are normally fixed and thereis little room for user-oriented fire installations and concerns.Future research is needed to strengthen shipping company learning processes and to giveusability a more prominent role in maritime Safety Management. There is also a need ofresearch demonstrating how usability can be integrated as a key value in ship design.

Industrial fires are associated with many challenges and potentially large consequencesfor life, environment and property. The SEBRA project aimed to investigate preconditionsfor a well-functioning fire safety system, applying a systems perspective on workand safety. Three main themes were explored through field work on Swedish industrialworkplaces; (1) How do operations and the staff interact with fire safety installations ineveryday work, (2) What is the main focus of fire safety design, how is it conducted andhow do the end results affect fire safety and (3) What are the success factors behind positiveoutcomes from incidents where the personnel alone has dealt with fires.During the course of operations conflicts may occur between production and fire safetysolutions e.g. fire doors, detectors, alarm systems and procedures, sometimes to thepoint where fire protective routines or installations are bypassed. A common answer tosuch issues is to strengthen administrative barriers such as rules, safety information andtraining. However, in an industrial organization where resources are already strained,even more checks and routines will only run the risk of aggravating the problem at hand.When an industrial building is constructed there are no processes or methods that canprotect user needs in the design of fire protection. In construction, the main incitementis to minimize cost. When user adaptation is disregarded, costs are effectively transferredto the operational stage in the forms of more inefficient production and lower safety levels.The industry needs to develop ways of understanding and incorporating long-term operativeneeds in short-term construction projects, so that fire protection can be moreclosely fitted to the circumstances and demands of operative personnel