4 minute read

Automating fatigue risk management systems

How to automate fatigue risk management systems

FATIGUETECH IS THE EASIEST WAY TO IMPLEMENT, MONITOR AND MANAGE A WORKPLACE FATIGUE RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.

Fatigue presents health and safety risk to a workplace, its workers and others, and can be caused by a number of inter-related workplace and/or personal risk factors.

Workplaces with higher fatigue risk will often have factors that include, but are not limited to, shift work, extended work hours, limited breaks, job demands or adverse environmental conditions that need to be considered.

Under legislation, workplaces are required to eliminate or, where elimination is not possible, minimise the risks identified in their work activities.

However, controlling workplace factors is the only solution to managing fatigue risk because the workplace cannot control what workers do when they are not at work.

Workers are often best placed to know whether they are fatigued and play a critical role in managing workplace fatigue.

Thus, workplaces which have identified fatigue as a risk are faced with three distinct problems: training the workforce about fatigue risks factors and mitigation solutions, implementing and monitoring fatigue mitigation strategies, and engaging, and supporting workers to manage personal risk factors.

SOLVING FATIGUE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES

For workplaces that need to implement a fatigue risk management system, FatigueTech is a digital solution that makes it easy to meet health and safety obligations and support workers with the necessary knowledge, skills and resources to:

1. MANAGE PERSONAL FATIGUE RISK FACTORS

FatigueTech has adopted a stepped care model (see table, right) to help engage and support people manage their personal fatigue risk factors.

A stepped care model is a staged approach to the delivery of services comprising a hierarchy of interventions.

This ensures that employees can access the most appropriate services for their needs at any time, including the ability to step up and step down to different levels of care if their needs change.

FatigueTech Personal Risk accommodates low-risk workers all the way to workers who have had a fatiguerelated incident, or are managing severe or complex risk factors.

A low-risk worker such as an officebased day worker that may periodically work extended hours who could access the self-help resources in the knowledge centre.

At-risk workers such as a shift workers might be required to complete online competency-based training.

Workers experiencing fatigue or wanting more personalised information could undertake the online fatigue selfassessment to guide them to self-help information in the knowledge centre.

Finally, those workers who have been identified as high fatigue risk or have had a fatigue-related incidents combine their fatigue self-assessment with a consultation with a workplace fatigue specialist to develop a personalised action plan; and if they are identified with severe or complex needs they could be referred to multidisciplinary or specialist care.

Subscribed companies can refer workers directly from the platform, which will track utilisation of the service and consultation can be

FatigueTech is a digital solution that makes it easy to meet health and safety obligations.

done any time and in any location via the video conference function.

2. IMPLEMENT WORKPLACE FATIGUE MITIGATION STRATEGIES

The FatigueTech Workplace App enables workplaces to automate the implementation and monitoring of their fatigue risk management system.

Four tools make up multiple control levels in the FatigueTech App, which are all consolidated into a supervisor kiosk that controls and monitors these tools and allows leaders to manage fatigue proactively across the business. • WorkTime – WorkTime enables workers and managers to monitor compliance and manage overtime requests to ensure adherence to work hour requirements. • StartFit – Completed by the workforce as part of their pre-start routine and

monitors eight personal factors that influence fitness for work and fatigue to prevent incidents and injuries. • FatigueCheck – A point-in-time assessment to be completed by anyone experiencing fatigue, or as directed by the company procedures, to document the action they are taking to manage the risk of fatigue. • eJMP – An electronic journey management plan (eJMP) is a

documented process for planning and undertaking road transport journeys with the goal of arriving safely. • Supervisor kiosk – a user-friendly dashboard that enables supervisors to access and review records entered by their team to identify, assess and manage work hours, along with determining workers’ fitness for work, levels of fatigue and journey management risk, all in one place.

Mine workers are often at the wheel for long hours, leading to fatigue.

PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION IN ONE

Sustainability isn’t just a commitment - it’s part of SHOWA’s legacy. Our revolutionary Eco Best Technology® (EBT) offers the solution that makes a difference to the environment, without any compromise on protection and performance.

This article is from: