Fundamentals of Shiftwork Scheduling, 3rd Edition: Fixing Stupid
()
About this ebook
This book is for shiftwork schedulers and for teams involved in fatigue risk management systems (FRMS) for 24/7 operations. The book covers shift lengths from four to 24 hours, and numbers of crews from one to five. Shift plan examples include 4-, 6-, 8- 12- and 24-hour shift lengths, split-crew plans, a plan for part-time workers, and eight-plus-twelve-hour shift length combination plans. The Continental, Metropolitan, Panama, DuPont, oilfield/offshore, maritime watchstanding (classic and "close") and other known shiftwork plans (rotas) are assessed critically. I have updated the sections on sleep and fatigue physiology and fatigue countermeasures and added information on FRMS.
As far as I can determine, this is the most comprehensive, non-proprietary explanation of shiftwork scheduling available on the market. It should probably be in the library of every individual or team responsible for the scheduling of 24/7 operations. It may also be used as an inspection tool to help determine whether shiftwork-induced fatigue or shift work sleep disorder (SWSD) may have been a contributing factor in an accident. The book contains 155 scientific and technical references.
James C. Miller
I conducted 45 years of applied research and development concerning human cognitive performance and fatigue. I focused mainly on the measurement and analysis of human physical and cognitive performance in military and civil aviation; highway, rail and maritime transportation; and night and shift work. Operator fatigue was at the center of my interests after my days as an Air Force pilot in the C-130E Hercules tactical transport in Vietnam. I'm also the author of "Fatigue" in McGraw-Hill's Controlling Pilot Error series (2001), and the ASIS CRISP report "Fatigue Effects and Countermeasures in 24/7 Security Operations" (2010). In 2018-2021 I taught Physiology as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Life Sciences, Texas &M University-Corpus Christi.
Read more from James C. Miller
Cognitive Performance Research at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, 1960-2009 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA 346th TAS Diary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Fundamentals of Shiftwork Scheduling, 3rd Edition
Titles in the series (4)
Shiftwork: An Annotated Bibliography Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Maritime Watchstanding Plans: Origins, Variants and Effectiveness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFundamentals of Shiftwork Scheduling, 3rd Edition: Fixing Stupid Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnatomy of a Fatigue-Related Accident Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
Surviving the ICU: A Toolkit for the Critical Care Nurse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTactical Barbell II: Conditioning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Introduction to the Constraints-Led Approach: Application in Football Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spare Parts Inventory Management: A Complete Guide to Sparesology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Time Management Expertise Training Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom SAFe to Spotify: Comparing Enterprise Agile Frameworks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTime Well Spent: A Guide to Effectively Managing Your Schedule Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Demand Driven Adaptive Enterprise: Surviving, Adapting, and Thriving in a VUCA World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgile Essentials You Always Wanted To Know Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Remote Worker's Guide to Time Management: Collective Wisdom Guides for Remote Workers, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScrum: What You Need to Know About This Agile Methodology for Project Management Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of Slicing Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEffective SOPs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Your Ideal Length Of Time For Focused Work - Based On The Teachings Of Dr. Andrew Huberman: Unlocking Peak Productivity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHardware/Firmware Interface Design: Best Practices for Improving Embedded Systems Development Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leading a Hospital Turnaround A Practical Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Precision Multitasking Solutions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Manage Time When You Don't Have Any.: Self Help Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBakery Production Handbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Scrum Master Fundamentals - Foundations: Scrum Master Fundamentals, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAerospace MRO Leader's Guide to Achieving Breakthrough Performance, Within 7 Days! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExecutive Efficiency: Time Management Tips for Busy Professionals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgile Quickstart Guide for Managers: Lead Your Team's Transformation to Lean and Agile Management Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Make Sense of Employee Survey Results: A Practical Guide for Managers and HR Professionals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTime Mastery: Strategies and Tools for Limitless Productivity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChoose your WoW - Second Edition: A Disciplined Agile Approach to Optimizing Your Way of Working Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reliable Maintenance Planning, Estimating, and Scheduling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sleep Effects: How Better Sleep Can Transform Your Business Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Human Resources & Personnel Management For You
Preparing for the SHRM-CP® Exam: Workbook and Practice Questions from SHRM, 2022 Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ace Your SHRM Certification Exam: The OFFICIAL SHRM Study Guide for the SHRM-CP® and SHRM-SCP® Exams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New One Minute Manager Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 9 Types of Leadership: Mastering the Art of People in the 21st Century Workplace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Preparing for the SHRM-SCP® Exam: Workbook and Practice Questions from SHRM, 2022 Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuccess Mindsets: Your Keys to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sticking Points: How to Get 5 Generations Working Together in the 12 Places They Come Apart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Performance Appraisals That Work: Features 150 Samples for Every Situation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeaders Eat Last (Review and Analysis of Sinek's Book) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leading the Unleadable: How to Manage Mavericks, Cynics, Divas, and Other Difficult People Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Way of the Shepherd: Seven Secrets to Managing Productive People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Getting to Yes with Yourself: (and Other Worthy Opponents) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Workplace NeuroDiversity Rising Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Game of Work: How to Enjoy Work as Much as Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe First-Time Manager Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cracking the Code to a Successful Interview: 15 Insider Secrets from a Top-Level Recruiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Focal Point: A Proven System to Simplify Your Life, Double Your Productivity, and Achieve All Your Goals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/52600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews: Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases That Really Get Results Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Radical Focus SECOND EDITION: Achieving Your Goals with Objectives and Key Results Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unspoken Truths for Career Success: Navigating Pay, Promotions, and Power at Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for Fundamentals of Shiftwork Scheduling, 3rd Edition
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Fundamentals of Shiftwork Scheduling, 3rd Edition - James C. Miller
Fundamentals Of Shiftwork Scheduling, 3rd Edition: Fixing Stupid
James C. Miller, Ph.D., CPE
Published by James C. Miller at Smashwords
Copyright 2013 James C. Miller
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.
PREFACE
This book is for shiftwork schedulers and for teams involved in fatigue risk management systems (FRMS) for 24/7 operations. The book covers shift lengths from four to 24 hours, and numbers of crews from one to five. Shift plan examples include 4-, 6-, 8- 12- and 24-hour shift lengths, split-crew plans, a plan for part-time workers, and eight-plus-twelve-hour shift length combination plans. The Continental, Metropolitan, Panama, DuPont, oilfield/offshore, maritime watchstanding (classic and close
) and other known shiftwork plans (rotas) are assessed critically. I have updated the sections on sleep and fatigue physiology and fatigue countermeasures and added information on FRMS.
As far as I can determine, this is the most comprehensive, non-proprietary explanation of shiftwork scheduling available on the market. It should probably be in the library of every individual or team responsible for the scheduling of 24/7 operations. It may also be used as an inspection tool to help determine whether shiftwork-induced fatigue or shift work sleep disorder (SWSD) may have been a contributing factor in an accident. The book contains 155 scientific and technical references.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
SECTION 1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Shiftwork Defined
Sleep
Effects of Inadequate Sleep
Circadian Rhythm Effects
The Circasemidian Rhythm and the Siesta
The Character of Fatigue
Biology and Shiftwork
Calendar Arithmetic for Shiftwork Scheduling
Work Compression
DSNO Terminology
SECTION 2. SCHEDULING
Introduction to Shiftwork Scheduling
People
- Number of Crews
- Employment Ratio
Time
- Shift Type
- Shift Length
-- Four-Hour Shifts
-- Six-Hour Shifts
-- 24-Hour Shifts
- Shift Overlap
Basic Structure
- Shift Systems
- Shift Plans (Rotas)
Shift Interactions
- Shift Differentials
- Shift Alignment
- Shift Change Times
Principles for Planning
- Minimum Consecutive Night Shifts
- Recovery after Each Night Shift
- At Least 104 Days Off per Year
- Circadian Stability
- Shiftworker Satisfaction: Equity
- Shiftworker Satisfaction: Predictability
- Shiftworker Satisfaction: Good Quality of Time Off
Scheduling Methods
SECTION 3. EXAMPLES
Four-Crew Solutions
- Plans with Eight-Hour Shifts
- Plans with Twelve-Hours Shifts
- Complex Four-Crew Plans
The Five-Crew Solution
Three-Crew Solutions
- Plans with Four- or Eight-Hour Shifts
- Plan with Six-Hour Shifts
- Plan with Twelve-Hour Shifts
- Complex Three-Crew Plans
Two-Crew Solutions
One-Crew Solutions
A Part-Time Worker Solution
Solving a Simple Four-Crew Problem
SECTION 4. FATIGUE COUNTERMEASURES
Personal Countermeasures
Engineering and Administrative Countermeasures
Fatigue Risk Management Systems (FRMS)
SECTION 5. ASSESSMENT METHODS
Predicting Fatigue Effects Quantitatively
Gathering Data
Direct Measurement Methods
Semi-Quantitative Analysis
Indirect Measurement Methods
SECTION 6. SUMMARY
SECTION 7. GLOSSARY
SECTION 8. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Additional Reading
Acknowledgements
References
SECTION 9. FORMS
Work Demand Table
Shift Lag Table
Shift Alignment Table
Fatigue Checkcard
Shiftworker Satisfaction Survey
Epworth Sleepiness Scale
USAFSAM Mental Fatigue Scale
Karolinska Sleepiness Scale
Stanford Sleepiness Scale
# # #
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
According to American comedian Ron White, You can't fix stupid!
(36). Working at night and trying to sleep during the day often makes workers stupid. This book provides the technical expertise needed by employers and schedulers to avoid stupefying their night workers.
Consider the following definitions of the word stupid
from various on-line dictionaries:
- Merriam-Webster: slow of mind, obtuse, given to unintelligent decisions or acts, acting in an unintelligent or careless manner, lacking intelligence or reason, dulled in feeling or sensation, torpid, marked by … unreasoned thinking or acting, senseless (a stupid decision).
- Webster: lacking or marked by lack of intellectual acuity, in a state of mental numbness, lacking intelligence, very dull, wanting in understanding, sluggish, in a state of stupor.
- American Heritage: slow to learn or understand, obtuse, tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes, marked by a lack of intelligence or care, foolish or careless; dazed, stunned, or stupefied.
Personal experience teaches us that these problems are also symptoms of the effects of sleep loss and mental fatigue. Additionally, they align well with more formal descriptions of the symptoms of mental fatigue, as shown in the following table.
When stupefied, human operators become the weakest link in a human-machine system and the whole system may fail or produce erroneous results because of that weakness. A good shiftwork schedule is an important administrative tool for minimizing the prevalence of operator stupidity
when there is a demand for a 24/7 work schedule.
This book is designed for use by shiftwork schedulers, managers, supervisors, employees, and fatigue risk management teams. It defines nine principles and ten components of a method of shiftwork scheduling for regular, cyclic shifts that can minimize expected fatigue effects in the workplace caused by 24/7 operations. Section 1 provides basic information concerning sleep, circadian rhythms and fatigue, so that the implications of various scheduling components and principles may be understood. In Section 2, I discuss ten schedule components and employ nine scheduling principles. Paying attention to these principles and components should help you to design a reasonable schedule for supporting 24/7 operations or to assess the quality of an existing schedule.
A number of examples of plans are provided in Section 3 with objective assessments of their qualities. Section 4 discusses various options of countering the effects of fatigue in the workplace, including FRMS. Section 5 presents methods of assessment for the adequacy of present and planned shiftwork schedules. This section contains links to data forms placed at the back of the book. If the forms are not reproducible adequately, full-size copies are available from the author. The book ends with a summary of the shiftwork Principles and components and some scheduling recommendations.
The numbers in parentheses at the ends of sentences indicate citations of 155 scientific and technical publications listed in the References section. For more in-depth information about many of the subjects covered here, see Shiftwork: An Annotated Bibliography, containing more than 680 references (86). The references cited in the annotated bibliography address the design of shiftwork schedules and the effects of shiftwork on safety, health and human performance in many work environments. The annotated bibliography is also available as a PDF file at Smashwords.
SECTION 1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
SHIFTWORK DEFINED
[S]hift work refers to any nonstandard work schedule. It includes evening or night work; a rotating shift, in which hours change regularly (e.g., from day to evening to night); a split shift, in which a period of work is followed by a break and then a return to work; and extended duty hours, consisting of long periods of work (usually over 12 hours)
(105). Work may be classified as follows (125):
- Systems without night or weekend work; this is the nine-to-five
weekday-only job,
- Systems with night work but without weekend work, or
- Systems with both night and weekend work, or continuous shiftwork.
These systems are also called 24/7
systems.
Within the 24/7 domain, we may classify systems as:
- Regular, fixed;
- Regular, rotating; for example, four crews with rotating eight-hour shifts; or
- Irregular, i.e., varying numbers of crews and shift lengths; for example, the five-day irregular work week of U.S. Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers, or the irregular schedules flown by air transport crews.
The only subjects addressed in this book are regular fixed and regular rotating schedules. However, a better understanding of regular schedules should improve your ability to schedule irregular shiftwork. Because of its complexity, irregular shiftwork scheduling requires resources beyond the scope of this book. A number of commercial enterprises provide software and technical support for this kind of scheduling. To find the available resources, search the Web with the keywords shiftwork
(and shift work
) and rostering.
If you are to understand many of the significant problems caused by the decision to work at night and try to sleep during the day, you need to have a basic understanding of the biology of sleep, of circadian rhythms and of the nature of fatigue. Some basic information is presented here.
SLEEP
Sleep is not a passive or vegetative state, as many assume. It is generated by complex activities in the brain. To emphasize this point, consider several complexities of sleep physiology.
- Three kinds of sleep are identifiable with scalp electrodes (electroencephalogram, EEG). They are slow-wave sleep (SWS; sleep stages 3 and 4), rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, and stage 2 sleep. Generally, about half of a good-quality, normal night of sleep is spent in stage 2, while SWS and REM each occupy somewhat less than one-quarter of the night, and the remainder of the night is made up of drowsiness (stage 1) and wakefulness (stage 0) (117,151).
- The occurrence of SWS is associated with a release of growth hormone from the brain (147). Thus, we assume that SWS is a period during which some repair of muscle and nerve cells occurs, following their use during the preceding waking period(s).
- The occurrence of sleep is associated with memory consolidation (13,14).
- The proportions of sleep time spent in SWS and REM sleep depend quite a bit upon the degree and nature of sleep debt.
- The sleep stages mentioned above occur in an orderly manner with a 90-min cycle. When you first fall asleep in the evening and sleep through the night, you pass quickly through stages 1 and 2 into much-needed SWS. Eventually, you return to stage 2 and may generate some REM sleep. This cycle takes about 90 minutes. The cycle is repeated throughout the night with relatively less SWS and relatively more REM sleep as morning approaches. Five 90-minute cycles occur across 7½ hours. These five cycles plus some falling-asleep and waking-up times lead you to spend about eight hours in bed. A rough depiction of the 90-minute sleep cycle is illustrated here.
Rough approximation of an eight-hour sleep histogram, showing the 90-minute cycle of sleep stages that occurs throughout the night.
Sleep Regulation. The brain regulates the amount of sleep that we need. This regulation operates somewhat like the thermostat on a furnace or air conditioner, generating a condition known as homeostasis: the ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes (American Heritage Dictionary). A thermostat triggers heating or cooling when the room temperature exceeds a defined range of temperature, driving the room temperature back toward a given set point.
Similarly, in the absence of sleep pathologies, when we are too sleepy, we are driven to fall asleep; and when we have recovered enough, we are driven to awaken.
Sleep Drive. The need for sleep is a physiological drive, much like the drives for food and water. As with insufficient food and water intake, insufficient sleep leads to irritability and, if continued, to health problems. One may argue that sleep drive is even stronger than the drives to eat and drink. I may starve myself to death voluntarily or refuse to drink and then die of dehydration. However, continued sleep deprivation eventually causes each of us to fall asleep, initiating automatic recovery.
[N]o one gets used to not getting enough sleep. They might be able to do it, but they never overcome the drive for sleep or the consequences that invariably follow sleep restriction.
(22). Sleep debt has been compared to borrowing from a bank (100). People who sleep less than 8 hours per 24 hours are taking little 'loans' from their sleep banker.
Morgan cautioned that You know that your dangerously moody sleep banker may call in the loan when you are driving at 79 miles per hour on the freeway.
You should deposit eight hours in your sleep bank every day.
In fact, the National Sleep Foundation has integrated the results of decades of sleep research and observed that the normal range of sleep need for adults (about ages 25 to 70 years) is seven to nine hours per night.
Sleep Inertia. Sleep inertia occurs normally in the morning after awakening. It is a grogginess that usually lasts only about five minutes but may last up to 15 or 30 minutes in a person with a large, previous sleep debt. Though sleep inertia may not be detected as a problem after napping (Driskell & Mullen, 2005), it is possible that if the deeper stages of sleep occur during a nap, then this same sleep inertia may occur. Thus, at least 15 to 30 minutes should be allowed after a nap to allow sleep inertia to dissipate before performing safety-sensitive jobs.
EFFECTS OF INADEQUATE SLEEP
Humans have specific physiological and psychological requirements for getting adequate sleep. Everyone knows how it feels to get too little sleep. Sleepiness may be defined as an untimely desire to sleep and/or difficulty staying awake when wakefulness is required. Mental fatigue includes many symptoms, such as malaise, impairment of mood, memory impairment, slowed response time and impaired vigilance. Both sleepiness and mental fatigue are caused primarily by lack of sleep. When we do not get adequate sleep, we experience excessive mental fatigue during the time we are awake, also called excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). EDS often affects our ability to perform our jobs safely. Repeated sleep loss of even one or two hours per night will eventually degrade alertness and mental performance significantly, with greater effects for greater amounts of sleep debt. The effects of one night of sleep deprivation, for example not sleeping for 40 continuous hours, can still be detected in performance levels after five nights of sleeping for six hours per night (59).
We measure both mood and mental performance during laboratory and field investigations of the effects of fatigue (76,87). Generally, fatigue-induced impairments of mood and of mental performance do not occur exactly in parallel. For example, after a night of sleep deprivation we may experience mood elevation when the sun comes up, but our mental performance may still be insidiously impaired. Conversely, we may be convinced, again insidiously, that our mental performance is adequate even though we are feeling the malaise of fatigue. This latter situation leads to single-vehicle, run-off-the-road traffic accidents in which the driver falls asleep at the wheel. This latter situation also underscores the need to create fatigue-reduction strategies when we are well-rested, not when we are already fatigued. Fatigued people tend to make stupid
decisions.
Shift Work Sleep Disorder (SWSD). SWSD is described in Code 307.45-1 in the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD) of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) as a circadian sleep disorder. The essential features of SWSD are symptoms of insomnia or excessive sleepiness that occur as transient phenomena in relation to work schedules.
If we lose sleep across successive nights, the multiple deficits cause an accumulation of sleep debt and cumulative fatigue. Frequently, we tend to gain some recovery sleep over our weekends or non-work days. However, recuperation from cumulative sleep debt requires getting more sleep per night than the individual typically needs and for at least several nights (6,59,124).