I am trying to find away to measure useage without have to use meters/guages and lengthy spread sheets to log every engineers usage with all kit during a shift.

David I think we could do with a question and more information in order to be able to provide some real help. ‘Usage’ to me suggests the length of time that a piece of kit is used; ONE of the factors in determining the vibration exposure. It sounds to me that your best approach might be to identify the vibration levels for your various pieces of kit (whether by manufacturers data, vibration databases or if you really must your ‘own’ measurements) and then use the HSE vibration points system together with a HAVS tag system. This does not need spreadsheets just some simple adding up. I don’t see any way of getting around the ‘usage’ (time exposed) issue as the overall exposure is based on those 2 factors – vibration level and time exposed.

If you are in an industry where HAVS exposure is high and likely to meet the ELV then meters/spreadsheets may be your only option in the first instance, as Canopener states HAVS exposure is measured in time and vibration levels. I would look at this from a task basis to get your Time/Level stats. However, measuring does not need to go on indefinitely, you should only need to do this for a short time to assess average usage on a task basis, such as average day/week/month depending on the frequency of tasks. You should only need to revisit measurements when things change, the usual situations, change of materials, change of tools, change of people etc. Making sure that employees know the results and perhaps stating that they can use tools for task A and then task B and then they would be at the ELV for that shift and so can't use anything else. This may be a question of how you supervise or plan the work to keep track of the engineers exposure. A good robust health surveillance to identify those predisposed to circulation problems or joint problems that would need additional controls and decent information to users about the risks of HAVS and what to look out for, and not smoking and job sharing, keeping hands warm should also be part of your controls. Good luck!

Good advise from Lisa. You only need sufficient information to justify your Risk Assessment findings. In other respects, training, information, supervision/self-monitoring (?), robust review process (new tools, new tasks etc) and perhaps Health Surveillance will also serve in managing the risk.

David, I assume you need the accumulated exposure 'trigger time' for all tools used within a shift. The points system is great as long as you have accurate trigger times. I have had a similar problem and as previously mentioned asking Engineers / Operators to record 'trigger times' is not always practical or accurate. I have previously used an in-line timer for pneumatic tools which records air flow (i.e. trigger time). However, this can pose a problem if tool usage alternates and Operators are asked to record each figure each time. There is a tendency for the recorded figures to become an estimate or for the figures to be submitted retrospectively. Currently, as we are a higher risk industry for HAVS, we use a continual monitoring / metering system which totals accumulated trigger times for a combination of tools and provides a total exposure (points value) for each shift worked whilst reducing the manual input of the operator. I appreciate that there is no legislative requirement for continual monitoring and this system may be overkill for your company but this system works for us (higher risk for HAVS) and the system can be rotated thorughout the workforce to create 'typical' exposure profiles. The system we use is the HAVmeter although there are probably other systems on the market doing a similar job.