Why Managing Fatigue Is Important – Someone Has to Watch

For some must watch, while some must sleep. Thus runs the world away. ~ Shakespeare

Human beings watch all night in control centers, hospitals, factories, police stations and many places in the modern world. Pipeline controllers “control and monitor.”   It’s that monitoring function that is difficult, particularly in highly automated environments.  Those who watch also want to sleep, but they must not.

An editorial in The Deseret News questions how long a pipeline company can monitor the start up of a pipeline that had experienced a leak.  Although the start up plan required on-site monitoring for several days, monitoring will eventually be done from a control room and it can be done properly with instruments and technology and people.  The editorial states, “It isn’t feasible to expect a company to continue carefully watching a pipeline forever.”

That is the exact expectation, and pipeline companies are continually watching pipelines.  It is not done with people standing along miles and miles of pipeline corridors.  It is done from a control center.  This is a reason that managing fatigue is important.

Please read the article below and give it to others.

Why Managing Fatigue Is Important

Posted February 9th, 2011 in 2011 Managing Fatigue Articles, Human Factors, Managing Fatigue