Industrial Engineering

Review and evaluation of techniques for determining

fatigue allowances
Under guidance of
Prof.Mahendra Gadge
Department of Civil Engineering

BRACT’S, Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology, Pune-48

(An Autonomous Institute affiliated to Savitribai Phule Pune University)
(NBA and NAAC accredited, ISO 9001:2015 certified)
 Group Members
NAME ROLL NUMBER GR.NUMBER
RAJAT BHAISARE 363003 21910706
PIYUSH BHOSALE 363004 21910790
PRATHANA RATHOR 362040 21910638
PRATIKSHA MANE 363060 22020053
PRANAY AGRAWAL 363073 22020219

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CONTENTS :
• Introduction
• Types of allowances
• Fatigue allowances
• Determination of standard time
• Fatigue and its effects
• Prevalent fatigue allowances
• Differences in the Methods
• Objective
• Physiological fatigue allowances
• Empirical methods
• Methods based on static strength
• Methods based on heart rate
• Methods based on metabolic energy
• Conclusion : Physiological fatigue allowances
• Psychological fatigue allowances
• Environmental fatigue allowances
• Conclusion :Psychological
• Overall conclusion

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 Introduction
• Performance of tasks requires expenditure of metabolic energy,
substantial amounts in the event the task being performed is
physical and highly repetitive. Automation and computerization, on
the other hand, have increased the cognitive Contents in jobs,
resulting in greater concentration, attention and visual strain.
Continuous performance of tasks which have significant physical or
cognitive demands, without a break, is known to cause fatigue.
• In order to avoid the detrimental effects of fatigue, particularly
changes in the quality and quantity of output, rest allowances are
provided. These allowances, along with other allowances (personal
and delay) are added to the normal time to generate standard times.

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 Types of allowances
• There are three basic types of allowances that are included in the
standard time,
1) Personal allowances for needs such as getting a drink of water,
going to the toilet, etc.,
2) Delay allowances for work-related interruptions such as talking
to the supervisor, machine breakdown, etc.,
3) Fatigue allowances for recovery from work-related demands

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 Fatigue allowances
• 'a deterioration in the efficiency of human performance which
results from prolonged work'. The most noticeable effect of fatigue
is the decline in the quality and quantity of output. The onset of
fatigue is faster when work is being performed in adverse
environmental conditions involving noise, illumination, and
temperature.
• Fatigue allowances, which may vary from 0% to 10% (Lazarus,
1968) and are around 5.1%, on the average, for U.S. industry, are
given so that workers may recover from physiological and
psychological effects of carrying out specified work under specified
conditions depending upon the nature of the job (Glassey, 1966).

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Determination of standard time

When allowances are added as a percentage of

work time.

In the event rest allowances are added as

a percentage of shift time

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 Fatigue and its effects
• The Webster dictionary defines fatigue as: 'The exhaustion of
physical and mental strength'. This qualitative definition of
fatigue offers no insight into the origin, mechanisms,
manifestations, or processes involved with the development of
fatigue.
• Three working categories of fatigue –
1) Subjective fatigue,
2) Objective fatigue,
3) Physiological fatigue.

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• Subjective fatigue is characterized by decrements in psychological
factors such as mental alertness, the ability to concentrate, and
motivation. It is believed to be the result of reduced levels of activity
of reticular activating system.
• Objective fatigue is characterized by decrements in the output of
work,
• Physiological fatigue is characterized by identifiable changes in the
physiological processes such as depletion of energy reserves, or lack
of energy supplies.

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 Effects
• reduced output/unit,
• reduced efficiency and productivity,
• increased discomfort,
• weaker muscular contractions and depleted energy resources,
• increased levels of physiological responses (heart rate,
• metabolic energy expenditure rate, and core temperature),
• loss of concentration,
• nervous fatigue (from visual and auditory exposures), and increased
risk for overexertion and injury.

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 Prevalent fatigue allowances

• The widely used fatigue allowances come from three main sources
(ILO, 1979; Cornman, 1970; Williams, 1973). Each source reports the
rest allowances in the following three categories: physiological,
psychological, and environmental. Physiological fatigue allowances
have been derived taking into consideration the weight, or force, or
pressure, and sometimes the worker gender (ILO, 1979).
• Psychological fatigue allowances consider the effect of visual and
mental workload and its consequent strain. Environmental fatigue
allowances consider the effects of temperature, humidity, noise,
illumination, and supply of air.

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Department of Civil Engineering, VIIT, Pune-48 12
 Differences in the Methods
• In a validation test conducted by Williams (1973) on a sample of 145 jobs from
16 different establishments, average relaxation allowance per job was 17.5%,
and the range of allowances was between 9.5% to 53%. Besides wide
differences in allowance ranges, the suggested use of these values also differs.
• While ILO and Williams' values are to be multiplied by the normal time prior to
adding to it, Cornman suggests an algorithmic procedure for evaluating the
fatigue allowance.
• Williams' values assume that a minimum 10% fatigue allowance is given to
everyone (this 10% also includes personal allowance). ILO values are variable
fatigue allowances and assume that a flat fixed fatigue allowance of 4% is
added for all tasks and every worker.
• Cornman's procedure requires adding allowances from all factors and then
subtracting 25% from it.

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 Objective

• The objective of PPT is to review the newer methodologies for

developing fatigue allowances and to compare newer
recommendations with existing ones wherever possible.
• The new methodologies are divided into three categories,
namely
1) physiological,
2) psychological,
3) environmental.

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 Physiological fatigue allowances
• Metabolic energy expenditure rate, static (isometric) strength, and heart rate are the
most widely accepted physiological measures of work. These measures are known to
provide separate and independent limits for human performance in any task. Limits
for continuous performance of tasks, in terms of these physiological measures, have
also been derived, as are the fatigue allowances.
• Methods of determining physiological fatigue allowances can be subdivided into the
following categories:
1. Empirical (Cornman, 1970; Williams, 1973).
2. Based on static strength (Freivalds and Goldberg, 1988; Rohmert, 1960; Monod and
Scherrer, 1965; Rohmert, 1973b).
3. Based on heart rate (Karasch and Muller, 1951; Hettinger, 1970; Rohmert, 1973a).
4. Based on energy expenditure (Murrell, 1965; Mital, 1985; Aberg et al., 1968).

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 Empirical methods
Cornman (1970) uses a systematic
procedure for determining fatigue
allowances.
Working conditions, repetitiveness,
effort, and position are the four criteria
used in evaluating fatigue in tasks.

Cornman's method involves assigning a

level for each factor of fatigue and later
assessing the actual fatigue on a point
scale. Using four levels for each criteria,
points are assigned to each level ranging
from 5 to 50. For instance, the four
levels of repetitiveness of a job are:
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 Methods based on static strength

Fatigue is the ratio

of time of holding
to maximum
holding time.
Mathematically,

Using this relationship, Freivalds and Kaleps developed

variable rest allowances for infrequent exertions of small
durations (0.1 min or so) and compared them with ILO
(1979) values. They found that in almost all cases ILO values
were significantly higher (maximum difference was about 9%
at 70 lb force)

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The rest allowance would
depend on the extent of
muscular exertion (f/Fmax,),
and on the extent of
duration of this exertion
(t/Tmax,). An exponential
relation developed by
Rohmert (1973b) is given by:

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Department of Civil Engineering, VIIT, Pune-48 19
 Methods based on heart rate

Rohmert (1973a) derived an

expression for the heart rate in
muscular work as a function of
the extent of strain. The strain
was represented as a ratio of
effective capacity and
endurance limit, both being
measured in terms of heart
rate. The expressions are given
below:

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 Methods based on metabolic energy
Using the concepts of a
standard metabolic rate and a
basal metabolic rate, Murrell
(1965) proposed the following
relationship to compute rest
time (R) as a % of total working
time:

If a job comprises a number of tasks,

duration and energy requirements
for each task are needed. This
model has been verified on a
number of people and is the most
comprehensive approach to
determining rest period proposed to
date.

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Conclusion : Physiological fatigue allowances

• fatigue allowances based on physiological factors consider

either the localized muscle fatigue and its recovery, or the
heart rate rise above the endurance limit and its recovery, or
the total energy cost of the task.
• However, considering the fact that typical industrial tasks have
both static and dynamic work components, a composite
fatigue allowance may be in order

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 Psychological fatigue allowances

The effects of mental fatigue are investigated

by measuring performance over a sufficiently
long observation period. The performance
decline thus computed, ranged from 3 to 4%
after one hour to 7 to 15% after 4 hours. The
decline in performance, as computed from
the above equations, could be used to specify
rest allowances just as in the case of target
detection tasks.

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Conclusion :Psychological fatigue allowances

• It is difficult to summarize across the various methods used to

prescribe relaxation allowance for psychological fatigue.

• Part of the difficultly stems from the fact that a number of

causal factors are not amenable for objective measurement.
The issue of providing relaxation allowance for fatigue due to
psychological factors is all the more important given the fact
that the operator work place interface is continually changing
from 'a physical interface' to a 'cognitive interface’.
• Till then the empirical approach of Williams (1973) is perhaps
the most comprehensive for prescribing relaxation allowance

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Environmental fatigue allowances
• Climatic conditions, noise and lighting are the
environmental factors known to cause stresses that
could influence performance. In this section fatigue
issues concerning heat, noise and lighting are
reviewed.

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 Overall conclusion :
• Finally, granted that most of the jobs have physical, psychological and
environmental components, the respective fatigue allowances for the
various factors may not be additive. Williams (1973) and Cornman (1970)
assume it to be so as does the International Labor Office procedure.

• These procedures are somewhat empirical and intuitive. Additive method

may lead to an unrealistic allowance, if the number of factors are large. A
better approach would be to specify the largest allowance as the required
allowance. This would be a limiting factor approach. In other words, identify
the limiting factors for a task (physiological or psychological or
environmental).

• The relaxation allowance for the limiting factor would be the fatigue
allowance. In any case, more objective research is needed before the
limiting factor approach can be recommended.

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THANK YOU !!!!!

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