Designing this vessel's dashboard was equal parts engineering and communication. The dashboard needed to meet criteria to incorporate hydraulic and electrical systems, and the layout needed to work for the captain who stands at it every day on the water.
For this project I started by consulting with our onsite mechanic, who brought over ten years of captaining experience to the conversation. His input gave us a practical starting point grounded in how captains actually interact with their controls at sea rather than just what looked clean on paper. From there I worked directly with the customer through multiple iterations, sending updated layouts back and forth and refining the design based on the captain's specific preferences until it was exactly what they wanted.
This project also served as a proof of concept for a workflow improvement I had been pushing for early on at Delaware Bay. I facilitated the introduction of Fusion 360 as the primary 3D modeling tool, helping save time on projects and increasing precision. The dashboard was one of the first projects where that transition paid off visibly. The increased quality in design was clear enough that it gave the managers confidence in the new approach going forward.