Health and Safety Case Studies
Health and Safety - Noise at Work
A small manufacturing client appointed Dragonfly Acoustics to carry out an assessment of the occupational noise levels at its site in Sherburn-In-Elmet. The purpose of the assessment was to establish the noise exposure of employees working in their factory over a 40 hour working week, taking into account current working practices in their factory.
Dragonfly Acoustics attended the site and completed occupational noise measurements at each of the operator positions within the factory. The noise assessment was conducted in accordance with the requirements of the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005.
The noise exposure of an employee working in a given area is predicted by assessing the duration for which an employee is exposed to a particular noise level. An individual assessment has been completed for each operator position. The noise levels are then corrected for this duration and averaged over a 40 hour working week to calculate weekly noise exposure.
Where noise levels are not available for the areas in which staff spend the remainder of their day (e.g. in a canteen) it has been assumed that the noise level in those areas is 70dB(A).
The following recommendations were made:
1. Dispatch Warehouse
It was recommended that staff working in this area did not require any hearing protection.
2. Production Warehouses
Although not all areas of the production warehouses exceeded the second exposure action value, it was assumed that all staff rotated roles within these warehouses and were therefore periodically exposed to the areas where noise levels exceed the second exposure action level. It was therefore recommended that all staff working in these areas be issued with and directed to wear hearing protection with a minimum SNR value of 15. This figure was obtained based on the highest noise level recorded in these work areas and the amount by which it exceeds the second exposure action level.
It was also recommended that all the radios/music playing devices in the warehouses should be removed from the work stations as their use contributed unnecessarily to the noise level. If staff wished to listen to a radio/music whilst working it was recommended that they be provided with appropriate hearing protection which allows an audio feed to be played within the hearing protector or permits the use of an individual’s own music player whilst they are also using hearing protection. It was also recommended that if any staff did wish to use their own music player whilst at work then they should be required to sign a disclaimer in order to protect the interests of the company.
Health and Safety - Noise at Work
Dragonfly Acoustics was instructed by a client, an international offshore services company, to assess the noise on one of their vessels, a cable laying barge.
The Owners of the vessel had concerns about the occupational noise exposure of the crew whilst the vessel was undertaking cable laying operations. Time constraints on the vessel’s time in dock meant that the survey was required to be completed within 48 hours.
Dragonfly Acoustics were able to attend the site in the south of England within 24 hours of being initially contacted about the project. Noise measurements were completed on the vessel, with the data collected on-site being transmitted back to the Dragonfly Acoustics head office in Yorkshire, where it was compiled into a report and emailed to the client before the survey engineer had even returned to the Yorkshire office.
The project was completed with 36 hours of the initial contact being made by the client.
Health and Safety - Noise Nuisance
Dragonfly Acoustics was retained by the proprietors of dog boarding kennels to review the issue of noise generated by their business operation at this site and to investigate measures to reduce the levels of noise generated by the business.
This review was prompted by complaints made by residents of the neighbouring property to the local authority of a noise nuisance being caused by the business. These complaints had resulted in the kennels business being issued with a noise abatement notice.
The neighbouring property from which the complaints originated had been recently constructed, having been given full planning permission by the Local Authority.
Dragonfly Acoustics investigated possible noise mitigation measures and assisted the business in contesting the noise abatement notice, which was ultimately withdrawn by the Local Authority.
The Local Authority commissioned its own assessment of the possible mitigation measures for the site. Their conclusions of the consultant mirrored those of Dragonfly Acoustics in that, whilst a number of mitigation measures were available, none of these measures would prevent the noise nuisance from occurring and therefore there was no need to take any further action to reduce the noise.