RISK ASSESSMENT IN THE MILITARY: A WORK/REST SCHEDULE-BASED TOOL FOR THE USN SURFACE FLEET

Abstract

Long working hours, 24/7 shift work, restricted sleep opportunities, and circadian misalignment all lead to degraded human performance and impairments in decision making. After several mishaps involving U.S. Navy warships in 2017, renewed attention was devoted to optimizing warfighter performance and reducing safety risks associated with crew endurance and fatigue issues. This paper summarizes the development and initial evaluation of the Scheduling Management Aid for Risk Tracking (SMART) prototype. SMART is a human performance risk assessment tool designed to help the U.S. Navy systematically assess and mitigate risk due to crew fatigue during in port and at-sea operations. The heuristics underlying the prototype are selected to identify and quantify human performance risk based on a Sailor’s work and rest patterns. The results are designed to enable data-driven crew resource management decisions, take targeted fatigue mitigation actions, and rapidly calculate human performance risks.