Tarmac National Contracting is the first UK contractor todevelop, trial and roll-out an innovative system to provide ‘live’ data on tool operators’ daily exposure rates to Hand Arm
Vibration (HAV).
The company collaborated on two years of testing with ‘Reactec’,a leading noise and vibration specialist, to develop the HAVmeter.
It records cumulative real-time vibration data across all vibratory tools used by an employee throughout the working day.
The HAVmeter system features a durable, colour-coded tool tag on each piece of equipment, a magnetic swipe card for each
operator and a base station within the team’s crew bus.
Each tool is allocated a tag - colour coded green, orange or red - to signify the general level of vibration produced and the recommended safe daily exposure. Using a personal swipe card, each operator signs out a HAVmeter from the base station, this attaches magnetically to the tool tag on the equipment.
When the operator is approaching their maximum daily exposure level, the HAVmeter provides a visual warning.
At the end of each working day, the HAVmeter is returned to the base station where the unit is recharged and the vibration data automatically saved to the station’s internal memory. This
information is then downloaded onto Tarmac’s health and safety database, where operator exposure records and HAV trends are analysed. |