Digital monitoring is often viewed as a form of PPE which is deemed as the last option within the Hierarchy of vibration control, a system used in industry to minimize or eliminate risk such as exposure to vibration. There are numerous digital monitoring systems available but choosing one can mean the difference between deploying only PPE (reactive) or a system that sits at the heart of your entire decision making process to mitigate risk (proactive).
What is misleading is the term “monitoring” as many people are not aware that a good system uses monitoring as a vehicle to gain valuable information to identify the cause of exposure to proactively help mitigate vibration risk. So it is important to choose a system that is easy to deploy and use otherwise workforce adoption and information retrieval could be problematic. Secondly the information needs to be readily available to all stakeholders involved in helping remove exposure. Thirdly for the information to be provided in a format that is easy to understand and clearly helps design and measure the most effective risk reduction actions possible.
So how can information created by digital monitoring be used proactively and not reactively to support all levels of the hierarchy of controls to mitigate HAVS risks?
Before applying a Hierarchy of controls an assessment of vibration exposure risk is required to understand the representative levels of vibration workers are exposed to and prioritise actions in accordance to the levels of exposure.
It is proven there is no typical working environment across many industries including manufacturing, especially around manual tool usage which fluctuates dramatically from week to week and month to month. An assessment will be required to take this into consideration but will be open to error as it is an estimation based on a limited timeframe which cannot capture fluctuations.
It is also proven that the vibration magnitude between tools operators using the same tool on similar projects can fluctuate greatly and a tools vibration magnitude can vary greatly dependant on its condition.
Traditional methods to risk assess relies on a fixed tool vibration magnitude which has to take into account differences in the use of the tool, the properties of the tool or the skill of the tool user, all of which have a material impact on the vibration of the tool. All monitors until recently have been classed as tool timers which rely on the fixed tool vibration magnitude to calculate HSE exposure points. HAVWEAR which is part of the Reactec Analytics Platform, is the first practical dosimeter technology worldwide to be worn by the tool user, on the wrist. This revolutionises the assessment of risk from the use of power tools by providing a real time determination of the vibration experienced by the tool user.To measure the effectiveness of risk reduction activities occupational health checks and further exposure assessments are performed to measure effectiveness of controls. If each assessment has a potentially high margin of error the comparison will provide poor guidance on the effectiveness of actions and ultimately limited worker protection. Health checks can also be more targeted and proactive based on a greater and more representative understanding of individual worker exposure.
In summary an exposure assessment is based on a series of estimations each with considerable margins of error equating to an overall margin that could typically exceed 300%. This can mean operators deemed low risk actually exceeding exposure limit values on a regular basis and more importantly ineffective design of controls.
With a clearer understanding of the source and levels of exposure; related working practises and tool utilisation; the Reactec Analytics Platform plays a central role in providing the most representative exposure assessment of risks and insight to enable employers to prioritise and mitigate HAVS risks – proactively at all levels and stages.
