How much lower fatigue risk was your organisation exposed to in the last three months compared to the previous period? Or the average risk of the year prior? Did you achieve your goals? Have you reduced your overall crew fatigue risk with ten percent, or perhaps twenty? Or not at all?
Surprisingly, many organisations, even airlines, are still to this day unable to answer these simple questions. Their fatigue safety action groups (FSAGs) are stuck in the details, dealing with individual fatigue occurrences (the 'trees' if you like) without any clear vision or control of the wider canvas ('the forest'). They have no clearly articulated goals, nor a quantification or follow-up of the overall fatigue risk - the risk of the (full) organisation suffering a fatigue-related incident or accident. They just have a procedure for reactively dealing with individuals becoming tired now and then during working hours - on a level where they think it is worthwhile to fill out a fatigue report.
Clearly, we can do much better than that. It starts with quantifying the overall fatigue risk. Then identifying the fatigue hotspots, implementing improvements, and tracking the progress in our crew management process over time. Realizing it is a process - much like any other manufacturing process. Setting well-designed and quantified goals, that are challenging yet achievable, for each step of the process is a necessity. Clear goals for the flight schedule, the crew pairings, the planned and published rosters, and of course - for what is operated. All good performance starts with clear goals.
Welcome to read more here about taking a process control approach to fatigue risk management. This document provides the 'broader perspective' to managing risk throughout the crew management process.
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