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64 C h a p t e r 7 The Identifying and Reducing Workforce Fatigue in Rapid Renewal Projects project has spanned several years and included a wide range of technical activities, including litera- ture reviews, discussions with stakeholders, field data collec- tion, data analyses, behavioral modeling, outreach, and product and tool development. Taken as a whole, these activities and the resulting research findings have allowed the project team to develop a number of conclusions and recom- mendations about this important topic. These include the following: ⢠Fatigue is clearly present in rapid renewal environments and presents considerable safety risks. ⢠Existing fatigue risk management programs cannot be used in rapid renewal environments; development of a tai- lored suite of tools and implementation facilitation is required. ⢠The tools developed in this project have great potential for addressing the fatigue problems identified in this project, but they must be introduced to relevant stakeholders and end users in a clear and supportive manner. ⢠Outreach should consist of a broad communications effort aimed at scientific and technical audiences as well as indus- try stakeholder groups. ⢠Outreach activities should be accompanied by an imple- mentation effort to pilot test the materials developed in this product, evaluate their value and usefulness, and revise them to reflect stakeholder and end-user feedback. Each of these conclusions and recommendations is dis- cussed in more detail. Fatigue is clearly present in rapid renewal environments and presents considerable safety risks: The scientific litera- ture review and field research with working highway con- struction projects demonstrated that rapid renewal scheduling practices can exacerbate worker fatigue through a combination of extended days, night shifts, and weekend clo- sures. These schedules can lead to a reduction in time avail- able for recovery sleep, and fatigue mitigation such as napping during appropriate periods of the work shift does not seem to be practiced. Existing fatigue risk management programs cannot be used in rapid renewal environments; development of a tai- lored suite of tools and implementation facilitation is required: The few published analyses of fatigue risk manage- ment implementation portray regulated industrial operations, usually within the transport sector (Fourie et al. 2010; Gander et al. 2011). It is likely that the safety functions in regulated industries are more developed than in construction compa- nies. The largest project the team investigated is a $350 million, 3-year program, based on a joint venture between two large companies; this project was served by one full-time safety offi- cer. In smaller firms or projects, the safety function appeared to be served by a foreman on a very part-time basis. Given these fairly minimal staffing levels (and the probable small resources available), it would be a considerable challenge to implement fatigue risk management in the manner typically described in the literature. Available data from process evaluations (Fourie et al. 2010) suggest that even the regulated transport organiza- tions have some difficulty implementing fatigue risk manage- ment due to resource limitations, unclear guidance from the regulator, and a tendency to âcut and pasteâ regulatory guid- ance templates into a policy document and feed it back to the regulator. The principal risk related to this issue is that fatigue risk management implementation guidance may simply go beyond the capabilities of most contracting firms without external assistance and facilitation. The tools developed in this project have great potential for addressing the fatigue problems identified in this project, but must be introduced to relevant stakeholders and end users in a clear and supportive manner: The team has developed a suite of tools, including work scheduling aids and work practice guidance, organizational practices, and worker and manager Conclusions and Recommendations
65 training, that can be used in an integrated approach to fatigue management in rapid renewal highway construction. The tools were provided to TRB in a form that will facilitate adoption by various organizations, such as industry associa- tions and large or small contracting firms. The team is initiat- ing the process of outreach to foster eventual adoption of the tools and believes that outreach and implementation must be deliberately pursued to ensure successful transition of the products. It is also important that the outreach and imple- mentation activities be initially led by researchers knowledge- able in fatigue risk management, since there is very limited knowledge concerning this topic in the highway construction community. Thus, it would not be realistic or appropriate to simply âhand offâ the products of this effort and expect that implementation would be successful. Instead, the team sug- gests that a follow-on effort be undertaken that would initially use the current research team as âambassadorsâ for outreach and implementation, in order to build expertise within the end-user community that will benefit from the work. This endeavor would include various industry group and con- tracting firm safety managers and construction planners, who would become sufficiently knowledgeable about fatigue risk management to take over and lead a broader, industry-wide implementation. Outreach could consist of a broad communications effort aimed at scientific and technical audiences as well as industry stakeholder groups. The following outreach activities are examples of what the team would expect to achieve: Publish Technical Papers ⢠TRB Human Factors Session (or other highway construc- tion session, as appropriate), January 2013 ⢠AASHTO journal ⢠Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Accident Analysis and Prevention; Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health Conduct Committee Briefings ⢠AASHTO subcommittee on construction ⢠OSHA Roadway Workzone Safety Alliance Hold Public Sector Organization Briefings ⢠FHWA Office of Safety ⢠Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/OSHA Hold Private Sector Briefings ⢠AGC ⢠ARTBA Involve Worker Organizations ⢠Laborersâ International Union of North America (LIUNA) ⢠White collar organizations (e.g., for designers and managers) Consider Additional Outreach ⢠Webinar(s) that include all of these on the invitation list ⢠Distribution of print or digital material to selected orga- nizations ⢠E-mail campaign Outreach activities should be accompanied by an imple- mentation effort to pilot test the materials developed in this product, evaluate their value and usefulness, and revise them to reflect stakeholder and end-user feedback. Implementa- tion activities would focus more on the specific use and effec- tiveness of the products generated by the current R03 effort, including training, schedule modeling and guidance, coun- termeasure guidance, and organizational implementation of aspects of a fatigue risk management system. This activity is much more challenging than outreach, in that it requires motivation and participation by end users on a longer-term basis than simply reading a paper or listening to a webinar or meeting presentation. Under the assumption that the out- reach activities will identify such potentially motivated par- ticipants, or via other means such as TRB committee contacts, the team envisions the following implementation tasks: ⢠Identify early adopters of fatigue risk management among large highway construction project new starts. ⢠Brief state DOT and contractor management during the project design phase, prior to lane closure and work sched- ule planning. ⢠Implement workforce training program prior to construc- tion start. ⢠Implement manager/designer training program at incep- tion of project. ⢠Gather qualitative (and potentially quantitative) data on perceived value of the R03 products, personnel fatigue, and general fatigue-related safety metrics throughout a defined period. ⢠Identify lessons learned concerning fatigue awareness, countermeasure implementation, schedule variations, and exceptions. ⢠Revise R03 products based on implementation experiences and end-user feedback. A realistic time frame for these activities is in the range of 12 to 18 months, in order to engage the industry group meeting cycle, to conduct individual outreach meetings, and to gather implementation-oriented feedback for potential product modification.
