Frequently Asked Questions

FAID Quantum is a quantum leap forward in biomathematical modelling for fatigue risk management. FAID Quantum offers the ultimate accuracy in sleep-wake prediction with outputs in two scales, Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) and FAID Scores. There are three documents available in Resources and Media for more information Moving Over To FAID Quantum as well as a more in-depth documents What you need to know about FAID Quantum, and BMM Warning.

To align all users to a similar product interface; current FAID Standard Licences will now be moved over to FAID Quantum Licences, but only the FAID Score analysis and output results will be available. If you would like to upgrade to receive the KSS analysis and outputs, then an upgrade fee is required. NOTE: InterDynamics will recognise the initial licence fee paid for the FAID Standard Licence and will credit this, and any current annual support fees, when upgrading to FAID Quantum (with both KSS and FAID Score results).

For further information, or to discuss how to convert your FAID Standard v2.2.1 licence to a FAID Quantum licence, email enquire@interdynamics.com today.

The magnitude of consequences of an event, should it occur, and the likelihood of the event and its associated consequences, are assessed in the context of the existing controls. Consequences and likelihood may be determined using statistical analysis and calculations. Alternatively, where no past data is available, subjective estimates may be made which reflect an individual's or group's degree of belief that a particular event or outcome will occur.

To avoid subjective biases the best available information sources and techniques should be used when analysing consequences and likelihood.

Types of analysis

Because of the complexity and cost of analysis, in practice, qualitative analysis is often used to obtain a general indication of the level of risk. Later it may be necessary to undertake more specific quantitative analysis.

The methodology InterDynamics employs is based on the Zurich Hazard Analysis developed by Zurich Risk Engineering. It is similar to, and supportive of the framework provided by the Australian/New Zealand ISO standard for Risk management – Principles and guidelines (AS/NZS ISO 31000:2009).

Within the Settings of FAID, task risk ratings may be turned on and used with multiple Tolerance Levels (FTL/KTL). This feature would be used if an organisation wished to select different risk ratings for different tasks / shifts of the same individuals, or analyse multiple roles of differing risk ratings at the same time against varying Tolerance Levels together within a single company-wide Hours-of-work Work Schedule. In practice however, most organisations usually analyse single job functions as a discrete unit, or have a single FTL for the whole organisation, and thus rarely use the multiple Tolerance levels / task risk ratings.

When turned on, a fourth column of data appears in the Work Schedule for the task risk rating. There are three fixed ratings:

1. Low
2. Moderate
3. High

These relate to the task that is being performed. For example:

• a pilot is in command of take-off or landing – High
• a pilot is in the office doing photocopying – Low

The FAID Score Tolerance Level and a KSS Tolerance Level are benchmark figures, set and rostered against in a biomathematical model as an Hours of Work related control. Analysis results are measured against these benchmark figures.

Fatigue Tolerance Levels are usually determined after carrying out a Fatigue Hazard Analysis Risk Assessment. In the absence of a Fatigue Hazard Analysis Risk Assessment, the sample tolerance levels provided in FAID Quantum, or your Apparent Fatigue Tolerance Level can be used as a starting point. However, it is important to determine the appropriateness of these thresholds.

Establishing a Fatigue Tolerance Level provides further details.

It has come to our attention that organisations have been including short breaks (45 mins) when inputting work hours into FAID for analysis. For example, an eleven hour shift, is broken into blocks of 4 / 2 / 1.5 / 1.25 hours of work with 45 minute breaks in between. Thus, the individual has been inputted to have only worked 8.75 hours, and subsequently a lower Peak Fatigue Score is produced, than if they had been inputted as a whole eleven hour shift.

Overall, the inclusion of breaks that are less than 1 hour is not sufficient to include as an opportunity for an individual to obtain recovery sleep.

If there is adequate surroundings provided by the organisation for an individual to rest; e.g. a quiet, dark room, with sleeping facilities, and a long enough break is provided for the purpose of rest, then it may be appropriate to split a shift into work, short-break, work periods.

In the case of no adequate opportunity for sleep provided, then it is recommended, by the Centre for Sleep Research, that at a minimum a rest period of four hours should be included in inputs when entering work periods.

If the organisation is splitting up the shifts into separate tasks, where there is an allocated Low Risk time of less than 1 hour, then the inclusion of a Low Risk shift would be more appropriate for Risk Management than a short break of non-work.

With an increasing corporate recognition of the risks involved with roster related fatigue and the public awareness of the impact of these risks, there is a need to proactively address the problem of fatigue inducing work practices.

Fatigue and its impact on decision making is a global issue that has emerged with the extended hours of work required to service 24/7 operations. Work-related fatigue and consequent changes in alertness, reaction time, decision making and communication are all major risks for shift workers.

Fatigue risk management is a shared responsibility. Employers have a duty-of-care to provide safe work schedules that permit an adequate amount of time for an employee to sleep, rest and recover from a shift.

Just as importantly, workers have a duty-of-care to their employers and fellow workers to ensure that they obtain sufficient sleep and rest in order to complete their work duties in a safe and responsible manner.

Work-related fatigue and consequent changes in alertness, reaction time, decision making and communication have all been identified as major risks for shift workers. Our Risk-Based Approach is designed to help manage these risks and contribute to a safer work place.

FAID contains only one bio-mathematical model (BMM), whereas FAID Quantum contains two.

FAID contains only the FAID Standard BMM producing FAID Score results.

FAID Quantum contains two BMMS (1) the FAID Standard BMM producing a FAID Score result; and (2) the FAID Quantum BMM which incorporates sleep prediction together with results in the more familiar Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS).

The Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) is a 9-point Likert scale often used when conducting studies involving self-reported, subjective assessment of an individual's level of drowsiness at the time.  The Karolinska Sleepiness Scale scores are defined as follows:

9. Extremely sleepy, fighting sleep
8. Sleepy, some effort to keep alert
7. Sleepy, but no difficulty remaining awake
6. Some signs of sleepiness
5. Neither alert nor sleepy
4. Rather alert
3. Alert
2. Very alert
1. Extremely alert

The KSS has an extensive body of literature linking KSS scores to actual workplace performance and objective measures of fatigue. The FAID Quantum BMM uses this scale enabling the user to better understand the numeric output aided by the descriptions associated with each score value.

Risk management is recognised as an integral part of good management practice. To be most effective, risk management should become part of an organisation's culture. It should be integrated into the organisation's philosophy, practices and business plans rather than be viewed or practiced as a separate program. When this is achieved, risk management becomes the business of everyone in the organisation.

Risk management is the term applied to a logical and systematic method of establishing the context, identifying, analysing, evaluating, treating, monitoring and communicating risk associated with any activity, function or process in a way that will enable organisations to minimise losses and maximise opportunities.

Risk management is as much about identifying opportunities as avoiding or mitigating losses.

The methodology InterDynamics employs is based on the Zurich Hazard Analysis developed by Zurich Risk Engineering. It is similar to, and supportive of the framework provided by the Australian/New Zealand ISO standard for Risk management – Principles and guidelines (AS/NZS ISO 31000:2009).

The FAID Score Tolerance Level (FTL) and KSS Tolerance Level (KTL) are benchmark figures, that is used in the resulting outputs. Hence, analysis results are measured against this benchmark using colours, ie for FTL:

If we say that the FTL/KTL  is the FAID Score/KSS associated with a fatigue exposure that one is willing to tolerate, and consequently would plan schedules to within this benchmark, then we could plan hours of work for higher risk tasks against a lower FAID Score/KSS benchmark (FTL/KTL) then a lower risk task where one would likely tolerate higher fatigue exposure.
Hence, when using multiple Tolerance Levels a higher FAID Score/KSS benchmark figure is chosen for a lower risk task, as the fatigue exposure tolerated could be higher.

FAID is the Fatigue Assessment Tool by InterDynamics. It is not an Acronym.

If you are wishing to reference FAID, please either simply refer to it as "FAID", or "FAID - Fatigue Assessment Tool by InterDynamics".

FAID Quantum makes provision for the user to enter and compare results of multiple ID’s (representing either individuals, groups, or shift patterns) across two work schedules (sometimes used to compare Planned and Actual data). Results for Hours worked when exceeding the set FAID Score Tolerance Level (FTL), KSS Tolerance Level (KTL), Peak FAID Scores, Peak KSS and more, are determined and presented both graphically and in tabular form, together with summary distribution of results.

Plot showing FAID Scores and KSS over time

Shift Details

Yes you’ve come to the right place!

InterDynamics’ various websites (including www.faidsafe.com) have been consolidated, in order to showcase our full capabilities within the one re-designed site.

We hope you like the new site and find all the information you need about our Fatigue Risk Management and Decision Support offerings.

There are three methods of inputting of shift data into FAID Quantum:

1. Direct input via either the Single or Cycle Add Shift function within FAID Quantum
2. By selecting Shifts from the Add Shift function within FAID Quantum that have been pre-defined shift from within the Settings section
3. Creating the shift patterns in a spreadsheet and then copying and pasting into FAID Quantum.

Within the FAID Quantum Work Schedules (1 or 2), there is one task/shift/rostered activity record per line containing three compulsory fields of information (ID, Start, End), with optional fields like Task Risk, Origin, Destination, Activity Code, Location Start, and Location End. The optional fields need to be turned on within the Settings section of FAID Quantum.

ID can be text (ie a person's name), or value (ie payroll number) used to identify an employee or planned sequence of shifts (“line of work”).

Start and End are the date and time of the task – FAID Quantum writes these in “dd mmm yyyy hhmm” format but is quite versatile in interpreting (reading) most common date/time formats.

Task Risk (if using multiple Tolerance Levels) must be one of “Low”, “Moderate”, or “High”

For example:

Smith,1 Nov 2017 0900,1 Nov 2017 1730,Moderate

Smith,2 Nov 2017 0900,2 Nov 2017 1730,Low

Additional Information can be found in the following FAQs

• I am having trouble entering and manipulating data for importing, what do you recommend?
• What format is your data file?

Note: The FAID Quantum Roster (which also allows for the application of roster templates), FAID Quantum - Enterprise and Customised versions of FAID Quantum can also directly import shift data extracted from third party systems.

In the past InterDynamics utilised the brand ‘FaidSafe’ to refer to it’s Fatigue Risk Management services and methodology.

Nowadays we are proud to refer to this offering as Our Risk-Based Approach to managing fatigue. The company is the same – we’re just simplifying our branding and focusing more on who we are – InterDynamics.

You may also have noticed that InterDynamics’ various websites (including www.faidsafe.com) have been consolidated, in order to showcase our full capabilities within the one re-designed site.

We hope you like the new site and find all the information you need about our Fatigue Risk Management and Decision Support offerings.

FAID provides a representative score (FAID Score) of the fatigue exposure of a worker based on the following biological determinants of fatigue:

• The time of day of work and breaks
• The duration of work and breaks
• The work history over the last seven days (this is weighted so that the most recent days provide the most input)
• The biological limits on recovery of sleep (basically, this acknowledges that you can’t bank up sleep. That is, there is only a certain amount of sleep that can be obtained in a break of certain duration at a certain time of day.)

While the FAID Score is essentially arbitrary, benchmarking studies suggest that fatigue threshold scores of 80 or below are consistent with a safe system of work for Australian industrial operations.

In the absence of a Fatigue Hazard Analysis Risk Assessment Workshop, a Peak Fatigue Threshold score of 80 can be used as a starting point.

For assessing the risks in your operations there is an Australian/New Zealand Risk Management Standard AS/NZS ISO 31000:2009 that provides a comprehensive guide to risk management. It includes a qualitative risk analysis matrix and uses a combination of the magnitude of the consequence and the likelihood of the event, which are allocated a qualitative measure of high risk, moderate risk and low risk.

Support in this process is also available through our Fatigue Hazard Analysis Risk Assessment workshops.

InterDynamics' scientific advisor (and from whose thesis FAID came out of) Dr Adam Fletcher has indicated the following:

The subjects in the studies that were done when FAID was developed worked in a range of operations with various commute times as occurs in most companies and industries. On average, the commutes were 30-45mins each way. This time period is not a separate inclusion within FAID, but rather reflects the living conditions/situation of the people involved in the scientific research project. Thus long commutes have come to be defined as those longer than 45mins.

Around 30mins each way in terms of FAID, has come to be considered 'normal' and anything significantly over 30-45mins is likely to mean FAID is underestimating the impairment and overestimating the recovery sleep. The resolution is not so high however that we should get caught up about 5 or 10 mins in commute time when we know other factors (such as how boring/monotonous the drive is, the time of day of the commutes and the conditions) all play a role as well.

Where significantly longer commutes exist at the start or end of shifts, then the shift start/end time can be extended to account for the extra time above (say) 45 minutes, to review the impact on fatigue exposure as a result of the longer commutes.

FAID Quantum is definitely helpful in identifying fatigue exposure associated with hours of work whether these are planned or actual hours, and in particular, taking into account time of day impacts on sleep opportunity and recovery provided by different work patterns. It is also very useful in understanding what is currently being tolerated by the hours worked with regards to fatigue exposure (by analysing 12 months or more of historical data). When combined with a risk management approach it is a powerful analysis tool.

FAID Quantum is now also available as a web-based application, which is accessible from any internet connected device (including Apple Mac, smart phone, tablet).

If you wish to run the Windows Desktop version of FAID Quantum from a computer that doesn't have a Windows operating system, an option is to obtain virtual machine (VM) software which will enable your computer to run different operating systems and multiple applications on the same physical machine. There are lots of Virtual Machine Software available from VMware (Workstation), Microsoft (Virtual PC), Sun Microsystems (VirtualBox), and many more with many different features, and licencing types.

This means that either the file is currently in use by another program, or that the folder, for the destination of the file, has write protection (i.e. read only) applied to it.

To fix for the file in use:

Close the file in use, and
Then try to save the FAID Quantu, file.

To fix for the Write Protected folder:

Navigate (ie using windows explorer) to the folder where saving to
Right click – select "Properties"
Unselect the Read Only attribute.

To fix for the Write Protected folder for Windows Vista:

From the Program Start Menu find the FAID Quantum program icon
Right click – select "Properties"
Under the "Compatibility" tab tick "Run this program as an administrator"

FAID Quantum Windows Desktop requires:

• Operating System:  Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10
• Free Hard Drive Space required is a minimum of 10MB
• Free RAM requirements are a minimum of 64MB, preferably 512MB and possibly 1GB+ if analysing 1000+ individuals and/or 12 months of data.

FAID Quantum Web Service can run on any internet connected device (including Apple Mac, smart phone, tablet).

FAID Quantum uses comma delimited text files with an ‘.fqw’ (FAID Quantum Work Schedule) file extension. The files have no header information.

There is one task/shift/rostered activity record per line containing three compulsory fields of information (ID, Start, End), with optional fields like Task Risk, Origin, Destination, Activity Code, Location Start and Location End.  The optional fields need to be turned on within the Settings section of FAID Quantum:

ID can be text (i.e. a person’s name), or value (i.e. payroll number) used to identify an employee or planned sequence of shifts (“line of work”).

Start and End are the date and time of the task – FAID Quantum writes these in “dd mmm yyyy hhmm” format but is quite versatile in interpreting (reading) most common date/time formats.

Task Risk (if using multiple Tolerance Levels) must be one of “Low”, “Moderate”, or “High”

For example:

Smith,1 Nov 2017 0900,1 Nov 2017 1730,Moderate

Smith,2 Nov 2017 0900,2 Nov 2017 1730,Low

View a sample .fqw file

Sample Work Schedule (12.9 KiB)

Additional information on generating this data using Microsoft Excel can be found in the I am having trouble entering and manipulating data for importing, what do you recommend? FAQ.

FAID Quantum is a stand-alone and well behaved MS Windows application which works well within common virtualization environments. While we don't have specific data on server versions we do have several clients successfully using FAID Quantum within both Citrix XenApp and Microsoft App-V environments.

The free trial version of FAID Quantum is limited to 3 weeks of analysis only. FAID Quantum - Small Business allows 3 months of data, and 1-30 ID#s to be analysed, whereas FAID Quantum - Business has no limitations.

It is important to remember that the fatigue calculation requires a week of history to determine a FAID Score. Therefore if you wish to analyse a week of rostered activity, data from two weeks must be supplied. The first week will be used as history for the beginning of the week to be analysed and no results for the first week will be provided.

Spreadsheets are a good way to assemble a lot of data and provide the ability to manipulate shifts. Below is an example of how to use the ‘Quick Roster’ spreadsheet.

Utilising some additional columns (Day, Shift Length, Time To Next Shift [Days, Time]) you can enter one date and time in the first Start shift, and the rest of the required FAID Quantum columns of data (ID#, Start, End) can be calculated ready for copying and pasting back into FAID Quantum using pre-developed formulas.

1. To start, enter the first Start date and time (example: E5).
2. For the shift (row) enter the Shift Length (HH:MM) and Time To Next Shift (Days and/or Time).
3. Next, the cell containing the End date will have the calculation:
   = Start cell + corresponding Shift Length.
   ( F5 = +E5 + H5 )
4. Then, the following Start Date will have the calculation:
   = previous End Time To Next Shift [ Days ] and [ Time ]
   ( E6 = +F5 +J5 +K5 )
5. Go back to Step 2., and repeat for as many shifts necessary.
6. When finished, copy to the clipboard the data under the highlighted FAID Quantum data columns (ID#, Start, End)

7. Then, return to FAID Quantum and in Inputs – Work Schedule 1 (or 2) click the paste from clipboard button.

You now have the ability to manipulate a roster by changing the Shift Length and Time to Next Shift data on the spreadsheet.

Download the spreadsheet -