Visual Scan in 2010

[Mr. Hot Dog]

Yesterday was my first trip to the park for the 2010 season. We had a great time with no lines for anything.

 

However, I did notice something new that seems to warrant a little constructive criticism. Before dispatching any coaster, the ops go through the usual schpiel. When they get to the "visual scan" part, it appears that the new process is for them to put their hand up to their forehead and scan around like explorers. It's good to see them reinforcing the visual scan as part of the routine, but everyone was really just going through the motion instead of actually scanning with their eyes. You could see that they weren't really looking at the ride... in some instances, they were pretty much covering their eyes with the hand. In other instances where they were positioned in a corner (like on Batman), they would swivel around and look at the wall and out the door instead of really scanning the ride area. Unless I'm mistaken, I thought the purpose was to give the ride a quick last look, see that all restraints were in place, and make sure no one had entered the ride area. While I applaud their attempt to ensure that the visual scan takes place, the explorer scan just seems a little counterproductive. It's one thing to put your hand up to your forehead and swivel around, but it's a whole other thing to actually LOOK while you're doing it.

 

Any opinions? (I know someone will reply in defense of the ops, but you just have to see it in action to understand what I'm saying.)

[Yoshi]

I wish they could just go back to the old way of saying visual scan, looking around and then dispatching the train.

 

I don't which ops I feel worse for, the ones at Great Adventure that have to look around with their hand on their forehead or the ones at Dorney that have to say out loud check after they check each restraint since both seem like overkill to me.

Edited May 3, 2010 by Yoshi

[GAcoaster]

The whole "visual scan" with the hand on the head is actually very effective. I saw two instances of attendants holding a train when they spotted problems at the last minute. I shows the guests that they are double checking everything. No matter whether you speak English or Spanish or any language, when you see someone doing that "look with the hand shading your eyes" you understand that they are checking everything. I agree there are some people who just go through the motions, but they are the exception rather than the rule. The Ops team is doing a really thorough job of auditing and making sure that ALL procedures are followed to the letter.

[Chiller]

I think that the visual scan is a good idea so they can catch any last minute things. One reason why I think that they do it this way is if a supervisor walks by and they see that they are doing the hand motions, they will see that they are doing their job. By just saying visual scan it can be hard to tell if the operator is actually looking. Also, it forces the operator to look in all directions.

 

On the downside, some operators may end up making a joke out of it and not really look when they are doing it. They may also feel stupid doing it, so they may not take it seriously. Multi-tasking, for some people, can be hard if their focus is to move their hands like that, it can be distracting to actually looking.

[29yrswithaGApass]

They may also feel stupid doing it, so they may not take it seriously.

This was my concern too when I first saw it.

[Mr. Hot Dog]

I agree there are some people who just go through the motions, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

 

This may be true. I just thought I'd mention it as constructive criticism since I definitely saw a bunch who seemed to miss the point of the exercise, and of course those were the ones that stood out in my mind. It might not be a horrible idea for management to stress the point of "don't forget to actually look while you're doing the scanning motion".

 

Chiller, there's no doubt that visual scan is a great idea. The point that I'm making is that just because you make the hand motion and swivel your body doesn't mean you're actually looking at the things that need to be scanned.

 

In defense of the ops, I guess it's also easy to get tired and look less attentive towards the end of the day. It doesn't necessarily mean you're doing a bad job though. I was a ride op years ago (not at GA), and your tasks become super automatic once you get into the groove. We'd still catch most major things, but errors can happen to the best of us after a few hours of repetitive tasks. But still, I thought I'd raise the point since it was something I noticed.

[gafreak]

I think that the GA employees feel stupid doing that. I have yet to see one person actually do it seriously- looks like they just do the motion.