Fatalities and injuries in the manufacturing industry don’t make headlines the same way falls from height or machinery failures do, but it’s a growing concern in the sector.
Fatigue can often be linked back to serious incidents and preventable deaths, and UK manufacturing industries need to do more to tackle this, according to Astutis.
Over the past decade, the manufacturing industry made the biggest safety gains, with a 39% drop in fatalities since 2014/15, according to Astutis.
However, there were still 11 people in the UK that lost their lives in the manufacturing industry; 11 families that lost a loved one.
Brenig Moore, whose work as Technical Director at Astutis includes advising manufacturing clients on safety compliance, explains why fatigue is a critical issue for the sector:
“Fatigue isn’t just about being tired at the end of a long shift. In manufacturing environments where work is repetitive, mentally demanding and often carried out in shifts, fatigue can cause a number of massive risks.
This includes reducing someone’s alertness and ability to make important decisions, as well as slow reaction times, lead to lapses in compliance with safe systems of work and can exacerbate risk-taking behaviour under extreme production pressures.
Traditionally, manufacturing safety has had a huge discussion around dangerous machines and preventing falls. However, when a tired and fatigued operator misjudges a step, skips a lockout-tagout procedure or becomes distracted by something else going on, then the outcomes can be just as fatal.”
While a single fatigue episode rarely appears in RIDDOR-reportable statistics, it often underpins those reports.
For example, contact with moving objects and errors during maintenance operations can often be traced back to errors of judgement and lack of attention.
Astutis’ Brenig says:
“Fatigue erodes professional judgement. A worker who might normally double-check a guard before entering a hazardous zone might skip a step when they’re mentally depleted.
That’s not carelessness, it’s human limits, and employers in the manufacturing industry need to ensure employees are fit and well enough to work each shift.”
Addressing fatigue isn’t about taking longer breaks and longer time between shifts, employees need to understand risks with shift work and recognise that night and compound shifts compound risks.
Brenig discusses what employers need to change in the manufacturing industry to help prevent injuries and fatalities:
“There needs to be an element of task and schedules in the sector that help reduce cognitive load and avoid long shifts. Employees should look at incorporating a schedule or rota of less hands-on tasks for those that have been doing too much hands-on.
Our survey also recently discovered that 95% of people at work cannot talk to their managers when they’re stressed, meaning they’re likely to continue working through fatigue as they think complaining will make them look weak. Employers need to build a reporting culture where employees can flag fatigue without feeling this way.”
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