[QUOTE=Lee Shore;191845]I’ve only seen drilling rigs from the deck of a boat. After watching the Deepwater Horizon movie, I’m trying to get a clear picture of the command structure on a floating unit.
All I can find from internet research about what an Engineering Technician (the protagonist in the movie) does is that he coordinates information. If that’s the case, the title sounds like a misnomer. If he’s a paper pusher, why did he need the panel with all the buttons? and second, who does he report to?
I reckon this is probably a good place to ask. Can anyone clarify?[/QUOTE]
I have not seen the movie. I will say that with any drilling contractor, you essentially have three destinct structures onboard; Drilling Operations, Marine Operations, and Technical Operations. Drilling & Marine speak for themselves. On the technical side, you have mechanical & electrical that focus mainly on top side equipment (drilling equipment (draw works/top-drive / cranes /etc). You also have what you would refer to as the engine room personnel that go by many deferent names, I suppose Engineering Technician is one of those. Sometimes power management is ran from the bridge or control room, sometime the engine room or engine control room. It just depends on the set-up. In either case, the engine control room is always manned during drilling operations even though most advanced MODUs have the ACCU ABS notation (if so classed - DNV has a notation as well) that would allow unmanned operations with a deadman alarm; no operator will work in that mode of operation on a DP vessel even though the level of automation would conceivably make that possible. I do not know what the term “coordinates information” means due to lack of context, but as a matter of being a supervisor, that is just part of the job function. You communicate information from your direct reports to your supervisor in the same manner the muster taker at the lifeboats communicates a head count to the bridge, or anything else that is pertinent due to the circumstances. It’s just part of what you do in general terms, but it’s not a primary role, or your only role. There is no function onboard whose sole purpose is to communicate or coordinate information, except maybe a dispatcher on the logistics side, but that is minimizining their role in the grand scheme of things.