Water & Environment Sustainability Specialist Embraces Digital HAVs Monitoring

We spoke with Adam Wells, SHWEQ Director, and Allan Lloyd-Rees, SHWEQ Manager, at Stonbury - a water and environment sustainability specialist - about adopting Ideagen Reactec's R-Link technology to digitise HAVs monitoring. 

Stonbury are specialists in supporting water companies and environmental organisations to deliver sustainable outcomes for people and our planet. 

At Stonbury, our work helps our clients sustain the supply of wholesome water and effectively manage wastewater while protecting and enhancing the environment. From river restoration to asset lifespan extension, our through-life programmes help future-proof water infrastructure and natural resources, contributing to a prosperous future for all.

The inherent and diverse nature of Stonbury’s work requires the use of vibrating equipment on a regular basis. This was managed using traditional trigger monitoring guidance’s and an employee declaration for record keeping. This approach resulted in excessive management time and intervention to ensure that employees remained below safe limits. In addition, there was an over-reliance on manufacturer information for vibration magnitude leading to the possibility of inaccurate information.

Following the successful trial of the R-Link across a variety of workstreams, over 160 employees have now been issued with R-Link products to manage and control vibration hazards. The following benefits have been gained:

• Ease of use for our employees compared to traditional manual “Tool Trigger Card” records.
• Efficient verification of our site-specific risk assessments.
• Real-time analytics, automated data reporting, and an ability to swiftly intervene when required.
• Clear visibility of genuine exposure levels, especially for those on restricted duties due to pre-existing conditions.
• Alerts to remind employees to rest, adjust, or stop their activities.
• Cost and time efficiencies through general use, recording information, and surprisingly, operational productivity improvements were tool use created lower vibration magnitudes than that established for heavier or general tool use.
• A significant innovation on our journey to supply employees with the safest possible tools and technology.

Each regional SHEWEQ manager receives an automatic weekly report giving them unprecedented and timely insights to risk levels in the field. The real use detected exposure data from the watch also enabled the teams to identify defective pieces of equipment and attachments as vibration outputs change dramatically.

The Results

R-Link has enabled us to closely monitor Hand-Arm Vibration (HAV) exposure in real time. R-Link has eliminated the need for employees trying to workout exposure points from manufactures data, ensuring that all HAV data is accurate, automatically recorded and securely stored. This has significantly improved our confidence in compliance with the regulatory requirements, and audit readiness is now much simpler and faster.

R-Link has provided a clear, real-time overview of exposure levels across our teams. This enhanced visibility allows for better planning and risk mitigation and helps identify practices that may need attention.

The workplace is certainly much safer now our employees can monitor their real time exposure levels. We will often receive phone calls with employees reporting tasks and equipment that indicates large levels of exposure. This shows that our employees understand vibration hazards, and they are proactively making an effort to highlight problem areas and lower exposures. This is now leading our teams to better plan and innovate new solutions to further reduce vibration hazards.