Aircraft Maintenance Technology

JAN-FEB 2017

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FROM THE FA A www.AviationPros.com 45 esearch projects, training classes, speeches at every conference, FAA Advisory Circulars, new rules for flight crews, and multiple articles in AMT Magazine are examples of efforts to reduce the risk associated with worker fatigue. No one, including Dr. Bill, is ready to step up and say "Mission Accomplished." This article is another attempt to address the fatigue risk challenge. This article minimizes sentences and para- graphs. There are no references! Just use the checklists of actions to help manage your organizational and personal fatigue risk. Want details? (See November/ December 2016 AMT Magazine.) DR. WILLIAM B. JOHNSON is the FAA Chief Scientific and Technical Advisor for Human Factors in Aircraft Maintenance Systems. His comments are based on nearly 50 years of combined experience as a pilot/mechanic, an airline engineering and MRO consultant, a professor, and an FAA scientific executive. LET'S TRY A FATIGUE CHECKLIST By Dr. Bill Johnson CORPORATE ACTIONS ❑ Acknowledge corporate fiduciary responsibility to provide safe air transportation ❑ Identify and empower a fatigue risk manager in appropriate departments ❑ Send fatigue risk managers to training ❑ Establish and promote a fatigue risk management system (FRMS) ❑ Ensure organizational buy-in to reduce fatigue- related risk ❑ Provide fatigue awareness training to everyone in the organization ❑ Ensure that the SMS investigates worker fatigue as a root cause factor in every event ❑ Assign values to losses and production inefficiency caused by fatigue ❑ Document fatigue issues in all worker injury reports ❑ Set reasonable schedules for maximum hours per day for work ❑ Set reasonable schedules to accommodate eight hours/day of worker sleep ❑ Establish a reasonable plan where a worker can call in "too fatigued to work" ❑ Address the risk associated with extended days for road trips or AOG situations ❑ Automatically flag time records with frequent extended hours/day and continuous days/week/ month ❑ Recognize that continuous excessive overtime threatens safe product and worker safety ❑ Provide loaner sleep monitor technology to help workers understand their sleep schedules ❑ Provide screen for sleep apnea WORKER ACTIONS ❑ Recognize that fatigue risk management is a shared personal-organizational responsibility ❑ Recognize that long work hours and night time schedules have trade-offs with normal life activities ❑ Train family/friends to accommodate your commitment to be fit for duty ❑ Commit to eight hours of daily sleep ❑ Factor commute time into your fitness for duty plans ❑ Keep a two-week sleep diary using technology (like Fitbit) or paper ❑ Learn from the employer-provided fatigue awareness training ❑ Ensure that you have a comfortable, quiet, and dark area for optimal sleep ❑ Avoid caffeine or excessive alcohol before sleeping ❑ Consider fatigue issues when reporting any hazards ❑ Discuss fatigue issues with co-workers ❑ Commit to eight hours of daily sleep (repeated on purpose) GOVERNMENT ACTIONS ❑ Acknowledge that flight/worker safety and commercial/legal factors should drive fatigue risk management system (FRMS) ❑ Ask for fatigue data from SMS ❑ Provide hours of duty guidelines for those without FRMS programs ❑ Create educational and other FRMS support materials ❑ Conduct applied research and development to improve and validate FRMS interventions

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