DCNS introduces OPTICREW® naval personnel management service

: Posted On Tuesday, 03 April 2012 18:37

Naval Industry News - France

DCNS introduces OPTICREW® naval personnel management service

The innovative service evaluates the personal qualities and team aptitudes of individual crew members to optimise crew make-up for any given mission. The service was developed under a research and development partnership between DCNS and TKM Consulting, a management consultancy focused on personnel performance improvement. One hundred officer cadets from the Ecole de Maistrance at the French Navy's Centre d'Instruction Naval in Brest have taken part in the first full-scale trial of the OPTICREW® crew dynamics assessment service.

The OPTICREW® aptitude test is tailored to specific types of tasks and missions and the software generates comprehensive results that can be used by qualified naval training staff to optimise crew make-up.

(Picture: DCNS)

OPTICREW® is a training, management and career orientation tool that is now available to military academies. Individuals take the OPTICREW® test before undergoing training to identify potential tensions within a team or crew. Training staff can use the tool to assess the behavioural aptitudes of team members without having to wait for real-life deployments to understand team dynamics. Test results offer a quick way to determine skills training and team building opportunities.

OPTICREW® is also relevant to organisations and companies deploying teams to work in extreme conditions – emergency flight crews and response teams, marine firefighters, SWAT teams, special forces and law enforcement units, civil defence, offshore and nuclear industry task forces, etc. For example, the service provides indicators of how individual team members will react under stress in a crisis situation.

One of the key benefits of the OPTICREW® software is the ability to generate test results quickly for more effective risk management. By using the new service, naval commanders can make a rapid determination of crew dynamics on a given mission, identifying complementary profiles and potential areas of friction so that adjustments can be made ahead of time to maximise the chances of mission success.