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FATIGUE AND DROWSINESS OW WE MAKE OUR BEDS IS HOW WE SLEEP – FATIGUE, DROWSINESS AND WORKPLACE SAFETY The interaction between responsible employees and a successful and efficient Fatigue Risk Management System is vital for the effective control of risk, write Dr Angela Baker and Madeline Sprajcer. Introduction Fatigue is a known contributor to a myriad of both workplace and personal incidents and accidents and is generally addressed by the particular organisation’s Safety Department, through the use of a Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) which can be tailor-made to suit their needs and is ideally embedded within the sites’ Safety Management System or equivalent. The goal of contemporary Safety Management Systems (SMS) is to manage and minimise workplace hazards and risk, while optimising safe persons, practices and processes. By combining SMS and fatigue research, organisations can be better equipped to effectively examine the role of fatigue and drowsiness in the workplace. Once identified, action can be taken to develop and successfully implement an appropriate FRMS that manages and aims to ultimately reduce fatigue risk within a given workplace. Recent reports detailing the effects of fatigue on performance and the likelihood of incidents and accidents in the workplace have described shift workers injuring themselves or others on their way home after finishing night work, truck operators rolling their vehicles or driving off the haul road, pilots being asleep at their controls, operators in control rooms found sleeping, alarm systems being mismanaged, truck accidents being attributed to micro sleeps, and significant industrial catastrophes with fatigue as a contributing factor. However, for many of us as individuals, the negative outcomes of fatigue may not be as extreme, and may be as simple as being irritated with your partner or colleague, a miscalculation on a spreadsheet, over revving an engine, forgetting to put a fuel cap on, making typing errors or falling asleep during a meeting or in the crib room during a scheduled break. The underlying problem is human physiology, which has not caught up with our current 24- 18 AUSTRALASIAN MINE SAFETY JOURNAL hour working lifestyles, and cannot function effectively without appropriate rest. Figures 1, 2 and 3 demonstrate the results of an interaction between a heavy and light vehicle – a potential consequence for tired drivers (NB: this was a staged exercise on a mine site, site name / identifiers have been removed from vehicles). The light vehicle body was subsequently used at the mine enterance as a reminder. One of the more common ways of identifying and effectively managing fatigue is through the use of Fitness for Work (FFW) policies or programs. However, having such a policy as this in place does not necessarily mean that fatigue is being managed and minimised efficiently, only that a system exists. For any policy to be implemented Figure 1: A loaded dump truck running over light vehicle, the bonnet has been ripped off and is attached to the front driver’s side of the truck’s dumper bar. Figure 2: The body of the light vehicle after dump truck ran over the top of it. Figure 3: Engine and interior of the light vehicle after dump truck ran over the top of it. Figure 1 Figure 2