Wearables: A Tool for Investigating Fatigue in the Mining Workforce

Details

• Personal Author:
  de Sousa Marques JV
• Description:
  Fatigue is as complex as it is understudied, and it is a constant research topic in the mining industry. This study explores the possibility of investigating fatigue via the use of off-shelf wearable devices with the aid of custom applications. The developed applications follow the IoT architecture and tries to assess fatigue in an operational environment. The assessment of fatigue is done via the use of psychological theories. Considering that fatigue is a complex biological phenomenon, both qualitative and quantitative data is collected to assess it. The qualitative data is collected based on the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale. The quantitative data on the other hand follows Signal Detection Theory and Psychomotor Vigilance Tasks. A custom application named Real Time Fatigue Management (RTFM) was built to execute the tests on a smartwatch. The custom application includes a client application and an application server that handles requests. To assess the application and proposed architecture, a case study is conducted with the workforce of a site. The study focuses on collecting qualitative and quantitative data. An additional aspect that interests this study is the deployment strategy adopted for the IoT solution and organizational OHSMS practices and culture. 26 devices were set up and out of these data collection was successful on 13, which leads to a deployment ratio of 50%. The collected data points towards a relation between reaction time and fatigue and evidences the variation on fatigue throughout shifts. It points towards the need of more inputs to better understand fatigue. Further research on the topic to include other research questions is recommended, the study could benefit from a larger dataset and population. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Fatigue Mining Occupational Health Safety Shift Work Schedule
• Keywords:
  Emerging Technology Mining Industry Psychomotor Function Shift Work Wearable Technologies
• Publisher:
  University of Utah
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Thesis
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 8 ; Utah
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-99
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20068736
• Citation:
  Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah, 2022 May; :1-99
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Performing Organization:
  University of Utah
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Wearables: a tool for investigating fatigue in the mining workforce
• End Date:
  20280630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:108e58b13def2fcb1547a1d680e677d22483c890bd5eb4c11cb9c842570691d27b5a8be60d9f9dc93dc49235c4d2865aaef1371720caa1160b96c28b1b635aba
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/207322/cdc_207322_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.95 MB ]