The University of South Australia (UniSA) has developed a fatigue calculator to help workers assess if they are too tired to work.
According to Professor Drew Dawson, head of UniSA’s Centre for Sleep Research, the fatigue calculator helps individuals recognise the likelihood of them making a fatigue related error on the job.
The fatigue calculator takes two factors into account when determining individual fatigue levels: How long a person is going to be awake; and how much sleep they have had in the previous two days.
The answers to these questions are then calculated to determine whether the individual is operating at a low, medium or high risk level.
“Use of the calculator has the potential to reduce the number of fatigue related incidents and accidents that occur in the workplace,” Dawson said.
“Staying awake for 17 hours has the same effect on performance as having a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent and after 21 hours awake you demonstrate the same deterioration as having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.1 percent.”
UniSA said a number of mining companies are already using the fatigue calculator and have implemented it as part of their fatigue management programs.