Welcome to Focus on Fatigue,
The festive season is upon us! As the end of the year draws near we can find ourselves with increased work hours as we try to complete projects on time and under budget. It is in this sort of environment that the spectre of fatigue-related incidents can rear its ugly head.
InterDynamics has seen the need for some way to grade the likelihood that fatigue played a part in an incidence when it does occur. The GRAID Investigation Tool has been developed for this purpose. With this tool, all aspects of a particular incident are scrutinised, from the corporate culture to personal sleep times. A full run-down of this new product can be found in the Feature Articles of this newsletter.
We hope the information we’ve provided you in this issue is useful, please feel free to pass the newsletter on and/or suggest colleagues sign up for it themselves.
The InterDynamics team wishes everyone a joyous holiday season and a safe and prosperous start to the New Year.
Len Pearson
General Manager
InterDynamics Pty Ltd
320 Adelaide Street Brisbane Qld 4000
Tel +61 2 8404 0400 Ext 17
www.interdynamics.com
Views expressed in articles and links provided are those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of InterDynamics (except where directly attributed).
Feature Articles
GRAID Investigation Tool
Recently released by InterDynamics, the GRAID™ Investigation Tool can be used to rate the likelihood of fatigue contributing to an occurrence. This systematic and situation specific assessment tool offers organisations a consistent and practical approach to reviewing occurrences or fatigue reports as part of their Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS). A key outcome of the Tool is a GRAID Scorecard, and an indication from Low to Very High of the likelihood that fatigue was a significant contributor to the occurrence.
InterDynamics has developed the GRAID Investigation Tool to support organisations in the ongoing improvement of their FRMS. In an occurrence investigation, GRAID facilitates a systematic approach, and the ability to identify the relative contribution of fatigue-related elements. Organisations can use the GRAID Scorecard results to target high priority areas for improvement or further detailed review.
More ...InterDynamics News
Conferences and presentations
2014 FRMS Forum Conference
The Fatigue Risk Management Forum was created by the Aviation Industry to assist airlines with the introduction of Fatigue Risk Management Systems. Since 2010, the FRMS Forum has held an annual conference and this year’s conference from 30 – 31 October 2014 was in Singapore. Peter Page (InterDynamics’ Managing Director) and Len Pearson (InterDynamics’ General Manager) attended. Presentations over the two days varied from the Science of FRMS to ICAO Regulations on Fatigue Management and the FRMS Implementation of several airline operators, including InterDynamics’ client Express Freighters Australia.
CAAS (Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore) FRMS Training Seminar
Piggybacking on the FRMS Forum Conference, a two day FRMS Training Seminar was held in Singapore from 28 – 29 October. InterDynamics’ General Manager Len Pearson presented a paper on InterDynamics’ FRMS Suite of products from FAID Business Wide Time Zone edition through HAZAID, GRAID FRMS and GRAID Investigation Tool. Cargolux (CLS) LEAF Technology was also covered. Len’s presentation is available to those interested, if you have any questions, just ask!
9th International Conference on Managing Fatigue, Freemantle Western Australia, 23-26 March 2015
The ‘Managing Fatigue’ conference series is now an established and respected forum for research updates and discussion in the fatigue management community. First convened in 1992 by Associate Professor Laurence Hartley the meeting was most recently held in Freemantle in 2011. Each conference has primarily focused on the effects of fatigue in the transportation sector and this has involved working in conjunction with organisations such as the ‘National Road Transport Commission’ (NRTC) and the ‘Australian Transport Safety Bureau’ (ATSB). Over the years the meeting focus has also evolved to encompass a wider arena including sectors such as Aviation, Maritime, Industrial, Resources and Health.
Conference Themes: Transportation, Resources, and Health
Who Should Attend?: Occupational Health and Safety Professionals, Transportation Staff, Researchers, Road Safety Experts, Military Personnel, Aviation Experts, Freight and Heavy Vehicle Professionals, Defence, Science and Technology Organisations, Medical Professionals, and Road Authorities
In the News
Shiftwork and fatigue
Reset Your Body Clock
We know that our sleep schedules can shift to unnatural states in urban settings. To reset your body’s clock and learn your natural sleep patterns, try going camping for a week to see how you sleep in the wilderness. Researchers at the University of Colorado found that participants who roughed it in the great outdoors shifted their sleeping schedule to one that lined up more with the earth’s natural solar day and night. In the absence of artificial light, they returned to their primeval pattern. On average, the participants went to bed earlier, woke up earlier, and slept longer. Even self-proclaimed night owls shifted to a sleep/wake cycle that lined up with the natural solar day and night and started going to sleep well before their “normal” bedtime back home.
Protein Not a Problem for Shift Workers
This article was written in response to media reports that shift workers should avoid tucking into steak, brown rice or green veg at night because these foods “disrupt the body clock.” It discusses the research that lead to this information being disseminated and discusses the true implications of the findings for shift workers, and for future research.
Shift Work Could Be Affecting Your Mental Ability
Working an irregular shift pattern may be causing long-term damage to people’s memory and mental abilities, new research has shown. Shift work can disrupt the body’s internal clock in a similar way to jet lag, and has been linked before to an increased risk of health problems such as heart problems and even some cancers. However, scientists have now found a link between working shifts and a decline in brain function – especially among those whose shifts rotated between morning, afternoon and night.
Fatigue on the road
Coffee Better Than Music for Driver’s Fatigue
Blasting music could increase the risk of car accidents in fatigued drivers, according to a new study. “Even though both caffeine and music keep drivers feeling more awake, caffeine also helps them maintain good driving performance,” Shi Xu Liu, a graduate student in McMaster University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, said in a news release. “Music, on the other hand, can distract drivers, which may explain why driving performance is not significantly improved when it is used as a fatigue countermeasure.”
Sleep deprivation can cause drivers to doze when they believe they are awake
“When you are sleep-deprived for more than 24 hours, you need stronger sensory stimulation to maintain alertness,” explains Xue Ming, a sleep medicine doctor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark. “Sensory input such as light, noise and touch keeps people alert, but when there’s little stimulation, the brain will drift into a full sleep state or a micro sleep, which can last from a fraction of a second up to 30 seconds. In this state, the person feels like he is awake – he might even still have his eyes open – but he is actually asleep.”
The science of sleep
Why Do We Sleep?
For decades, scientists have been trying to figure out why, exactly, humans need to sleep so much. This article discusses five of the most interesting ideas about why human sleep.
Sleep Well and You’ll Work More
Study conducted by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine shows how critical it is for the adults to receive 7-8 hours of sleep per night. They claim that increasing sleep time helps reduce absence from work due to sickness as it boosts health.