Narrative:

I arrived at work and was immediately assigned monitor duties in another area. This is part of a new initiative by our local management to get our time on position (top) up to 5.5 hours per day at least. I performed the alternate duties for 1 hour and 20 minutes; and then reported back to the area for assignment. I was assigned R-28; tallahassee lo sector. Based on my observation of other controllers top; I expected to only be plugged in 20-30 minutes at the most. Due to errors in the reporting of our automated cru-art system; the supervisor failed to recognize that I had been on assignment for well in excess of 2 hours. It was only when I noticed I was fatigued at the sector and had missed a couple of details regarding my operation that I called the supervisor's attention to the error. I was immediately relieved. This new initiative is artificially inflating the top numbers for our facility; at the expense of fatiguing controllers beyond the numbers recommended by the FAA's own policies and studies. In a period of 2 weeks; we have gone from an average of 4.25 hours on position per day; to 5.5 to six hours per day; often times at sectors with no traffic whatsoever. This sort of operation breeds complacency and distraction in the control room as you have multiple controllers with nothing to do during periods of light traffic.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZJX controller expressed concern regarding new Time On Position (TOP) policy that artificially increases TOP at the expense of fatiguing controllers.

Narrative: I arrived at work and was immediately assigned Monitor duties in another area. This is part of a new initiative by our local management to get our Time On Position (TOP) up to 5.5 hours per day at least. I performed the alternate duties for 1 hour and 20 minutes; and then reported back to the area for assignment. I was assigned R-28; Tallahassee LO sector. Based on my observation of other controllers TOP; I expected to only be plugged in 20-30 minutes at the most. Due to errors in the reporting of our automated CRU-ART system; the supervisor failed to recognize that I had been on assignment for well in excess of 2 hours. It was only when I noticed I was fatigued at the sector and had missed a couple of details regarding my operation that I called the supervisor's attention to the error. I was immediately relieved. This new initiative is artificially inflating the TOP numbers for our facility; at the expense of fatiguing controllers beyond the numbers recommended by the FAA's own policies and studies. In a period of 2 weeks; we have gone from an average of 4.25 hours on position per day; to 5.5 to six hours per day; often times at sectors with no traffic whatsoever. This sort of operation breeds complacency and distraction in the control room as you have multiple controllers with nothing to do during periods of light traffic.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.