Afternoon All,

wonder if I could pick your collective brains for a quick minute...

I'm currently writing the control of vibration documentation for my company and wondered about the following point.

Our engineers use vibrating tools (grinders, polishers etc) and because they all do a full range of activities including assembly etc then 99% of the time they will be nowhere near the ELV of 5m/s^2. However, there could be the odd day (and it really would be occasional - talking once a year if that) where they may exceed it i.e. for some reason one of them had to do a full day of polishing.

Is this allowed in the regs? With noise, I know you can use a weekly average if its more representative but I can't find anything similar in the vibration regs.

Comments, thoughts appreciated as always.

Steve.

Steve, I suggest reading through the HSE guidance before trying to read the regulation.

On the HSE website look for guidance document indg175.pdf

It will explain that the ELV 5 m/s2 is the maximum amount of vibration an employee may be exposed to on ANY SINGLE DAY.

And it will also explain that there is an Exposure Action Value (EAV) which is a daily amount of vibration exposure above which employers are required to take action to control vibration exposure. For hand-arm vibration the EAV is a daily exposure of 2.5 m/s2.

So in effect your employee can exceed the EAV occasionally but should never exceed the ELV.

If the employee is exposed to vibration daily between the EAV and ELV then the employer should take some action to avoid this e.g. new tools, new processes, share out the jobs.

There is a HSE calculation tool which simplifies HAVS assessments with a points system. Use that so that employees (and the employer!) can easily understand the results of assessments.

John

Thanks for the quick replies, superb yet again :-)

@JohnW - thanks John, i'm quite happy we have all that covered, we do HAVS assessment at the same time as audiometry, we've had trigger time measured, look to purchase lower magnitude equipment and also implement working methods such as holding equipment in specially designed vices. We rarely exceed the EAV and very rarely (if ever) exceed the ELV on a given day - I was just checking that if we did on one day would we be going against the regs, turns out we wouldn't. Many thanks for the input though.

@Teh_Boy, thanks for that, exactly what I needed. I did think it must be in there somewhere, just couldn't see where - I promise I've read the regs and guidance ;-)

thanks everyone.

teh_boy - I am doing some work on this as well and thank you for your post at #4 - very helpful.

Just throwing something out there to mull over.........Since leaving UK some 8 years ago to ply my trade overseas in generally warmer climates I have yet to see an issue or workers comp claims relating to HAVS.

Currently working in Oz and have been for the last three years and have to report that Oz legislation does not have anything in place for the management of HAVS as there are so few instances of related illness and reporting.

Conclusion, albeit unsubstantiated is environmental conditions in the form of cold wet weather has a very large part to play in the realisation of this syndrome.

https://www.jstage.jst.g...5/54_12-0089-RA/_article

Its only 1 paper but interesting conclusion