New regulations will limit workers’ exposure to vibration from tools. Some m&e contractors and clients are already ahead of the game, as Richard Simmonds discovers.

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), around two million people in the UK are exposed to potentially harmful hand-arm vibration (HAV) at work, and nearly 300 000 suffer moderate to severe finger blanching – ‘vibration white finger’ – as a result.

Long-term, regular exposure to HAV from tools such as drills, breakers and grinders leads not only to vibration white finger, but to loss of sensation and pain and numbness in the arms and hands. Collectively, these diseases are called hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS).

“Hand-arm vibration has been recognised as a problem in the construction industry for some time,” says Mike Evans, head of health and safety for BAA at Heathrow Terminal 5, “but not to the extent that it has in coal mining or shipbuilding.” Today, awareness of the disease is increasing in construction – for a number of reasons.

Vibration white finger is one of the most common reasons for occupational ill-health claims against employers, and in recent years the size of compensation awards has been growing alarmingly. “An average out-of-court settlement is around £10 000 to £15 000,” says Paul Langford, marketing manager for tool manufacturer Hilti.

But the increasingly litigious culture in the UK – fuelled by the growing number of no-win, no-fee lawyers – is only one reason that employers are becoming more aware of this aspect of occupational health.

Regulations

The upcoming Control of Vibration at Work Regulations are the first in the UK that deal specifically with the dangers of HAVS. They implement the EU’s Physical Agents (Vibration) Directive in the UK.

The regulations are set to come into force on 6 July and guidance is due to be published in May. During the consultation, the HSE prepared a regulatory impact assessment that pinpointed groups of workers it considered at particular risk from HAVS. They include electricians, plumbers and builders.

The regulations set new limits on vibration. Assuming an eight-hour working day, employers need take no action if the tool vibration is less than 2·5 m/s2, the ‘exposure action value’. Above this value, an employer must have a programme of actions to control risk that might include risk assessment or monitoring of tool use. There is also an absolute cut-off – an ‘exposure limit value’ – of 5 m/s2.

“If a tool has acceleration of less than 2·5 m/s2, it can be used for eight hours a day; as the acceleration increases, the time gets shorter,” says Walid Hussain, product specialist at Hilti, who estimates that 90% of tools used in m&e work have a vibration level exceeding 2·5 m/s2.

The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations indicate a new willingness on the part of the HSE to tackle the HAVS problem directly. So what can those working in the m&e sector do to ensure they do not fall foul of the regulations? Dr Chris Pugh spearheads an occupational health initiative at Heathrow Terminal 5 that targets HAVS, and he sees no reason why other firms should not adopt a similar approach (see box).

The biggest hurdle companies may face when they start to assess vibration risks is an absence of reliable data about power tool vibration. The problem is that there are two standards for vibration measurement. Electric power tool manufacturers use BS EN 50144 – a laboratory standard intended principally for comparison of different tools.

The second standard, BS EN 5349, takes account of the inescapable fact that, as Dr Chris Pugh says, “tools are applied to different materials and used in different conditions by different human beings”. It involves multiple measurements, with multiple operators to build up a more accurate picture of the tool’s vibration performance.

Most manufacturers quote results to BS EN 50144 and add a disclaimer. This is understandable – a manufacturer cannot second-guess every potential application of its products – but the uninitiated might use these results as the basis of a vibration assessment and come up with a wildly inaccurate figure. “The problem is that these measurements bear no resemblance to what happens in real life; the vibration is often much, much worse,” says Hilti’s Hussain. Pugh says that “various companies have built up databases that give reliable data about exposure” and suggests that power tool users seek them out.

Small and medium-sized companies have little to fear from the new legislation, says Pugh. They should follow in the footsteps of larger firms like BAA and Haden Young (see box), and document their actions for any future HSE inspection. “Even one or two-man bands can do that,” he says.

Haden Young and Hilti

Haden Young is one of the largest m&e contractors in the UK. As many as 1000 of its employees use tools that expose them to hand-arm vibration, and it has worked with tools manufacturer Hilti to monitor that exposure.

In fact, Hilti had already been working with the Kier Group, the building contractor, to provide meaningful vibration information about its tools. “Hilti suggested we might want to go down a similar route,” says Mike Doherty, Haden Young’s health, safety and environment manager. A bonus was that Hilti was prepared to carry out all the necessary vibration measurements. “We have a considerable number of applications,” says Doherty, “and the technical expertise required to take these sort of measurements correctly is also considerable.”

Walid Hussain, a product specialist at Hilti, was involved in this process. “When we come up against an application for which there are no measurements, we send an engineer to take readings,” says Hussain. “We now have a large database.”

With the data in hand, Hilti made it available to Haden Young in an unusual way: “One of the things Hilti did fairly early on was to present the allowable exposure as productivity – number of holes drilled, for example – rather than time,” says Doherty. Hussain explains: “This has come up from end-users. They said: ‘Tell us how much work we can do’.”

This approach has made it simpler for Haden Young to limit its employees’ exposure to vibration without damaging productivity. Operatives can easily keep track of their work and supervisors can move staff around to ensure limits for any individual are not exceeded.

Haden Young was at an advantage compared with many large contractors in that it has a centralised organisation, Haden Young Construction Services, that supplies tools to its sites. “We also have pretty rigid internal controls to stop acquisition, hire or purchase of other tools,” says Doherty, “and a comprehensive servicing arrangement with Hilti.”

The changes have been positively received by the workforce. “Anyone associated with m&e for any length of time will have been exposed in years gone by, particularly if they used angle grinders,” says Doherty. “Although it’s not possible to do anything about past experience, it is possible to limit future exposure.”

BAA Terminal 5

Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport is one of the UK’s largest construction projects. The site has its own occupational health centre where a doctor and seven nurses carry out pre-employment health screening and treatment.

The occupational health effort is run by Duradiamond Healthcare. “Terminal 5 was challenging in that HAVS is a condition that has been poorly controlled in the construction industry,” says managing director Dr Chris Pugh. “There’s not a lot of occupational health expertise in-house, and projects are of short duration with an itinerant workforce.” So the length of the T5 project was a boon for Pugh: “It’s easier to start an educative process on a long project.”

Mike Evans, head of health and safety for BAA at Terminal 5, describes the approach to limiting vibration exposure: “Can you design it out? If you can’t, can you reduce it? If not, how can you work around it.” The first stage, ‘designing out’, involved conversations with the designers early on in an attempt to reduce the need for drilling, grinding or breaking. For example, concrete parts were made with holes precast where possible.

The next stage was to adopt what Pugh calls a “positive purchasing policy”. The site’s central store issues low-vibration tools and keeps them in good condition, replacing consumables such as drill bits as soon as they are worn. Vibration gets worse as wear and tear take their toll, and a given task takes longer, increasing exposure. All the tools are tagged with the longest time they should be used in typical applications. “We’ve probably reduced exposure by 90% simply by designing out and positive purchasing,” says Evans.

“Finally,” says Evans, “it’s no use going through all these processes unless you get understanding from the management and employees.” Operatives and their supervisors are aware of HAVS risks, and operatives are moved around to limit individual exposure.

Nor has the initiative had the negative impact on productivity predicted in some quarters. “By dividing activities up among the squad, there has not been a problem with productivity,” says Pugh.

Source

Electrical and Mechanical Contractor