FDX Another sleep study
 

Haven't we done a half dozen of these? Are they trying to find results that justify their scheduling practices?

Sorry for the rant, I can't sleep.

Another sleep study? How about we get to read and disclose the Enders report.

You'll probably get answers about the IRS and Benghazi first.

Why don't they just ask the NSA? I'm sure they have all the data already! :rolleyes:

Winner!!!!!

Very interesting.......not one Int'l sequence much less a Mem-Cdg-Dxb-Blr-Dxb-Blr-Can-Anc-Mem in 10 days.........Many, many single and double DH's (in the 11 anyway). No MEM am hub turns either.........1st blush is this won't tell the "Real" sleep story at all......lets see.....ATL, FLL, DEN, IND, ORD, PHL IAH, .......lots of Mgmt currency 1-2.5 block hour/leg trips. Maybe a Bus guy or two could comment on the selected Bus pairings.....

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And they knew, based upon your Internet usage, what your response was gonna be.

Que Rockwell song...

Sounds like a good job for the Fleet Captains.

+1.

Lies, d*** lies, and statistics. Thank you Mark Twain, you put it well.

Any fatigue study that does not involve ANC - EWR or MEM - ANC cannot be taken seriously.

Ok, I'll bite, what's the Enders report?

Edit: disregard [Search THEN Type...]

I'm sure everyone read the message, "From The Fatigue Risk Management Committee" in the June 4th edition of the Positive Rate Weekly Edition.
I'm sure you'll recall the Memorandum of Understanding "Collection of Human Performance/Alertness Data" (Sign in to fdx.alpa.org, then clcik to view) which was part of the 2011 "Bridge" Contract. Data Collection is key to the Fatigue Risk Management Program, which The Company is required by the FAA to have as the fourth component of the Safety Management System (ASAP, LOSA, and FOQA are the other 3).

According to Paragraph A.7. and the table therein, "The Data Collection Steering Committee (DCSC) will initially collect data" on a wide variety of pairings of various construction, including International pairings.


We have a chance to be a part of a process that actually leads to improvements.

We also have a chance to screw it up. It would appear that the intial collection does not meet the letter or spirit of the MOU. It appears to me that the intial collection focuses only on multiple hub turns, which matches the focus of the previous FRMC Chairman to use data collection to prove that 5 consecutive hub turns are just as safe as 4, or 4 are as safe as 3.






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The ALPA Fatigue Risk Management Committee (our guys) are trying. There has been a lot of work done to get this far. Again, as usual, FedEx holds the cards and they move at their own pace and with their own agenda.

ALPA has a contract if we choose to defend it.


The Data Collection Steering Committee consists of 4 members. 2 of the members are ALPA, chosen by the MEC Chairman, and 2 of the members are Company, chosen by the VP of Flight Operations. The 2 ALPA members are removed from flying, paid for their trips, and given Company-provided office space.

By design, ALPA has a voice in the process. We only give it up if we choose to do so.

Apparently, we already have. Or maybe we've already chosen to disregard the MOU, I dunno.






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ding!,ding!,ding!,ding! WINNER!!
fbh

People are reading too much into this, just go talk to the people on the committee. This first round is a small and controlled group to make sure the processes are working and that there aren't surprises. The people running this (and the actual scientists) understand that it is best to do things over a smaller initial scale and vet it before going system wide. We really do not want to have another Jepp debacle, do we? The Jepp system is so vastly inferior to what we had with LIDO that I doubt there is hope, but it is possible that some of the issues could have been resolved if they had done it over just a small controlled group at first, right?

Beta testing
Second level, external pilot-test of a product (usually a software) before commercial quantity production. At the beta test stage, the product has already passed through the first-level, internal pilot-test (alpha test) and glaring defects have been removed. But (since the product may still have some minor problems that require user participation) it is released to selected customers for testing under normal, everyday conditions of use to spot the remaining flaws.

Read more: What is beta test? definition and meaning

Ah, yes, beta testing. That's covered in paragraph ... umm ...

Say, what paragraph of the MOU covers that?

We're not inventing this stuff. Both parties agreed to do it according to the MOU. If the Company doesn't have enough wristbands, they need to get more. The targets for initial collection were defined and agreed upon. There's no "or you can make it up as you go" clause.






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I am not taking their free hot dogs or free wristbands. ;)

If this is what the mean then that is what they should say.

Right, let's trash a program that has the potential to fix any real issues out there because the FRMS steering committee (which includes the half that are ALPA) is not rolling it out all at once!

This is just basic data that we have access to through OUR sleep scientists and committee. We have only to gain. To address another post, yes, it just MIGHT be that it is safer to get into a "night routine" and fly more than 3 nights in a row. Or, the data might show that it is NOT safer. Would you really argue for the limit of 3 if the data showed that it is just as safe (or safer) to go four and your schedule is not so chopped up? We are not just talking about what happens on that fourth night, but also what happens when you get your two days off after three and now have to swing back into the night schedule. Is THAT safer? Again, the data will tell us.

The MOU covers many things, but there are bottlenecks in the system in terms of how much data can be processed in a given time frame, by both the company, the union and the sleep scientists. It seems to me that the way it is being rolled out makes sense. This has nothing to do with contract negotiations, it just has taken a long time to put together all the moving parts.

Wait. Who's trashing the program? I've been in favor of the program from the very beginning, and I'm still in favor of it. I am critical of those who are deviating from the program.

I believed it should have been implemented like any other MOU, with a signature of the MEC Chairman and the VP Labor Relations instead of being lumped in with a CBA as bait, but I supported the MOU itself. (And it's the Data Collection Steering Committee - DCSC, not the FRMS steering committee. I think I just described the make-up of that committee in a previous post.)


The data won't tell us whether one is safer than the other unless data is collected on both.


It's not about contract negotiations, directly, but there's certainly an issue of contract compliance. Either they do, or they don't. The before-cited paragraph says,The table then lists over 20 categories to be analyzed, including categories of both domestic and international pairings. The Company and ALPA identified those categories appropriate for analysis with the initial collection 28 months ago -- who changed their minds?

And yes, it has been a long time. A very long time. You would think we'd been waiting for someone to invent the Actigraph bracelets. They've been making them for over 20 years. The timing is a bit curious. We might need to delay contract discussions about work rules until we get all this collection stuff done, huh?







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I guess it is just a matter of whether you take that to mean that all of those categories would be collected simultaneously, or that those categories would comprise the "initial" body of research, even if collected over several months.

OT:

This still cracks me up. Having been in the school house when we switched from Jepp to LIDO and hearing the constant wailing and gnashing of teeth about how ****ty LIDO was compared to Jepp and how we were going to have violations and accidents because of the crappy product. It's just been fun to watch and listen.

Back to the regularly scheduled thread...

MX,

If you were in the schoolhouse when we switched, then you were probably in the schoolhouse when we did the side-by-side EFB evaluation using line crews. LIDO won hands down in that process, despite the steep learning curve on the new format. FedEx line crews said that it was better to learn a new system than use the system they already knew on the Jepp EFB. The Jepp EFB was crap then, and the current product is the same crap now. Now we've changed to that inferior product, but without the line crew evaluation process.

Makes one wonder whose palm got greased.

The complaints you heard back in the day were from crews who never saw the EFB alternative to LIDO. The complaints you hear today are from crews who have seen both.

My understanding is that a certain Exec V.P. had a side printing contract/company that produced all the "Hard Copy" LIDO Bags as well as the ongoing updates we carried in the back in case of EFB failure......

If you were in fact In The schoolhouse then
You should remember at that time we all were required to tote 50 LB jepp bags around.

While we were all happy to ditch the bag, the transition for paper Jepps to Paper LIDO was ver frustrating. At the time we made the switch, very few of our Aircraft had EFBs so we were forced to use the clumsy BIG notebooks that didn't fit on the yoke.

At the Time it seemed the majority opinion was paper lidos S**ked. But We all got Lido and EFB training in the Sim, not so with Jepps, just a 15 minute unpaid LMS.

Once the EFBs came online ( way too slow) and with a little practice, the Electronic Lidos were just fine and proved to be a superior product, as LIDO was designed to electronic.

Now we switch back to an OLD product, electronic Jepps are nothing more than a PDF of the paper.

The Jepp Software and Jepp EFB S**Ks and is way inferior to electronic Lido EFB. It is slow, locks up, doesn't send to other EFB half the time and isn't intuitive, plus we weren't given any training. They just showed up.

Paper LIDO did suck, restrictions scattered anywhere on the plate. Aspd restrictions in small, std font while altitude restrictions were in bold-larger font

But, producers of paper LIDO were very responsive to our complaints and rapidly improved, over time. Hopefully the efb jepps interface will also improve over time, right now i still prefer the lido product in general. But like the format of jepps approach plates/stars better than the lido arrangement

In fact i lose sleep wondering which I'll have on the jet during the hubturn
(The ipad app is hugely superior to the efbs on board the 57)
Backmto the regularly scheduled food fight

Don't misunderstand, I preferred LIDO and their EFB over carrying JEPPS and I knew that LIDO EFB was far better than JEPP EFB then and now. I'm just not *****ing about either one, because, well, it doesn't matter.

Sleep EEG?
 

How come our management and union "Sleep Experts" aren't suggesting this? Maybe they don't want to know the answer?

EEG Recording and Analysis for Sleep Research

Did you actually read this link? If so, how realistic would this be on a large scale basis? I say not even a remote possibility to conduct testing like this. Look at that equipment list...funny

Just some info on the issue being discussed.

The global consequences of sleep deprivation have been extensively studied in the past. A 2010 study, called effects of sleep deprivation on cognition, indicates that inadequate sleep can result in decreased every-day performance, reduced cognitive capacity and may even trigger emotional changes.

Meanwhile, a 2006 study, called changes in brain gene expression after long-term sleep deprivation, sought to understand some of the genetic alterations that occur in sleep-deprived rodents. The authors found that sleep deprivation provoked unfavorable inflammatory and stress responses in the cerebral cortex within the brains of tested animals.

Aside from this, an array of scientific studies have suggested a link between poor sleeping patterns and a host of common health conditions, including:

Impaired digestion
Reduction in growth hormones
Depression and altered sex-drive
Poor attention span and working memory
Obesity
Elevated blood pressure

Sleep Deprivation May Hammer Brain Cell Numbers [Video]

The company doesn't give a sh$it. You'll be replaced by a younger lower paid pilot, where the supply of such is plentiful. Our best hope is a strong negotiation stance in scheduling & work rules. You never see A brinks truck at a funeral and a xx% raise can't buy back lost life experiences