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    Creating an Effective FRMS: The Tools You Need

Creating an Effective FRMS: The CIRCADIAN Tools You Need

To successfully manage fatigue risk, five key defences are required. A successful Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) offers a systematic defence of each risk and involving specific tools to mitigate it.

The five levels of risk and their defences are summarised in the chart below:

Defence Level 1: Sufficient Staffing Levels

Ensuring a sufficient staffing level is an operation’s first line of defence. CIRCADIAN AUSTRALIA offers tools that address task load/workflow issues to ensure adequate staffing levels and proportionally balance them across the 24/7 schedule.

The Tools:

Defence Level 2: Sufficient Sleep Opportunity

Even in appropriately staffed operations, employees risk becoming fatigued due to poorly designed shift or duty-rest scheduling that fails to account for commuting time, overtime or employee shift-swapping. CIRCADIAN AUSTRALIA works with operations to establish a strong line of defence against this risk level with the use of fatigue risk models and the setting of outer-boundary limits on work hours or days.

The Tools:

Defence Level 3: Sufficient Sleep Obtained

The third level of risk relates to the difficulty many employees have in getting enough sleep as they work a night or rotating shift. An inability to cope with a shift work lifestyle, an undiagnosed sleep disorder, and the intrusion of personal stressors such as caring for sick family members are just a few of the factors that lead to employee fatigue.

The Tools:

Defence Level 4: Sufficient Workplace Environment

A workplace environment conducive to employees staying awake and alert through the nightshift is an essential line of defence in a successful FRMS. CIRCADIAN AUSTRALIA assists operations in re-designing their workspaces to improve the intensity and wavelengths of lighting, sound levels, temperature and humidity to ensure the safety of their employees who work at night.

The Tools:

Defence Level 5: Sufficient Alertness Behaviour

Having a workforce educated in recognising the signs and symptoms of fatigue, as well as implementing a policy that clearly delineates actions steps to take if an employee becomes fatigue at work represents a strong fifth line of defence in an FRMS. In addition to providing training programs and education material, CIRCADIAN AUSTRALIA offers alertness monitors, fitness for duty tests and other tools to help reinforce this line of defence.

The Tools:

FRMS as a Continuously Improving Tool: Fatigue Risk Root Cause Analysis

It is also vital to analyse employee errors, near-miss events and accidents and incidents to establish a) if fatigue was a casual factor, and b) where specifically in the fatigue risk management chain the failure occurred and how it could be prevented in future.

Risk Mitigation Tools:

Next Steps:

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