Emergency marine electrical repair process map

What is in this map

15 steps across 4 swimlanes and 5 phases, with 3 decision points.

Swimlanes (who does the work)

ServiceDesk, Field Electrical, Engineering and Customer

Phases (left to right)

Report & Triage, Impact Assessment & Dispatch, Diagnosis, Repair & Test and Return to Service

Why map this process

An emergency line lives or dies on how fast it correctly separates 'the vessel can still operate' from 'it can't,' and this map puts that call at the front, as its own decision, before a technician is chosen or a truck rolls. The row's own note defines critical as loss of propulsion, loss of steering power, or loss of essential supply, and degraded as a fault the vessel can run through on a redundant circuit — a distinction dispatch has to act on immediately, not something sorted out once someone is already on site.

The parts-availability decision midway through the map is the second thing that actually determines how long a vessel is down, and it's deliberately not hidden inside a generic 'repair' box. A technician standing at a panel without the part they need is a different, slower path than one who can fix it from the truck, and a customer watching the clock deserves to see that fork on the page.

Every step in the map

This is the spreadsheet behind the diagram. The numbers in “Goes to” are row numbers, which is exactly what the editor’s “Line to” column holds — so you can read the flow here and retype any part of it.

The decision points

Every branch in the map, with the label on each outgoing line. These are the questions the process has to be able to answer.

• 3. Fault affects **safety or vessel operability**?

  Owned by Engineering · Impact Assessment & Dispatch

  • Critical → step 4
  • Degraded → step 5

• 7. Repair possible with **parts on hand**?

  Owned by Field Electrical · Diagnosis

  • Parts on hand → step 9
  • Part required → step 8

• 11. System **passes function test**?

  Owned by Engineering · Repair & Test

  • Pass → step 13
  • Fail → step 12

Notes on specific steps

These notes travel with the map. In the editor they live in the Notes column and appear when you open a box.

1. Vessel reports electrical failure to 24/7 service line

The duty line takes the same call whether it's 03:00 or 15:00 — a bilge pump alarm and a total propulsion loss enter through the same intake, on the same number, every hour of every day.

3. Fault affects **safety or vessel operability**?

Critical covers loss of propulsion, loss of steering power, or a fault that leaves the vessel without essential electrical supply. Degraded is a fault the vessel can still operate through, on a redundant circuit or a non-essential system. This call is made before dispatch is sized, not after.

8. Source replacement part or specialist support

A spare from stock, an emergency supplier order, or pulling in a second technician for a fault outside the first technician's discipline — whichever gets a trustworthy repair moving fastest.

11. System **passes function test**?

Pass means the repaired system holds its reading under load for the stated test duration, not a momentary reading taken right after reconnection.

Making it yours

Phases (Report & Triage, Impact Assessment & Dispatch, Diagnosis, Repair & Test, Return to Service) sit in the Horizontal lane column; the four roles sit in Vertical lane. Adapt the criticality decision's Line text labels first — 'Critical' and 'Degraded' are this chart's own severity vocabulary, and if your operation uses a different scale (a numbered priority, say), that's a one-row edit, not a redesign, as long as the branch that triggers immediate dispatch versus scheduled dispatch stays intact.

What to watch out for

• Don't collapse the two dispatch rows (immediate vs. scheduled-within-window) into one. They exist because a critical fault and a degraded one earn genuinely different response commitments, and merging them removes the only place on the map where that promise is visible.
• The function-test-under-load decision loops failures back to rework, not to 'repair complete.' A repair that holds for a moment right after reconnection but not under sustained load is not a repair, and the map's own comment says as much — don't shortcut this into a single pass/fail box.
• Keep the customer confirmation as its own final step. 'Return to service' and 'the customer agrees it's back in service' are not the same fact, and an emergency job that skips the second one has no record of the vessel crew's own sign-off if the same fault reappears a week later.

Frequently asked questions