dimanche 8 décembre 2013

The Process Of Carrying Out A Noise Assessment At A Work Place

By Tiffany Gill


Continuous noise exposure at work can lead to workers having hearing problems or even deafness. The hearing problems can result while a person is still working at the place or has retired. There have been regulations passed by governments to protect employees from these discordance levels and hence reduce cases of deafness at such jobs. Apart from this, the organizations or companies themselves do carry out noise assessment to find the cause and reduce it significantly.

Persons at the workplace can be chosen to conduct this assessment such as a health and safety representative, a supervisor, an employee or even a manager. The first step will be to identify the source of the problem. The reason why persons from the organization are used is because at this level not much technical expertise is required.

The evaluator thus prepares a worksheet that contains questions that will be asked during the process. Methods that may be used to collect the data include checklists, observations, and interviews among other methods. The worksheet starts with inquiring about the hazard source. In many work places it may be from a compressor, a photocopier, machines, conveyor, radio, power tools and many other numerous sources.

Next question to be asked concerns who is exposed to the discordance. Therefore an assessor should indicate the location of workers on the worksheet in relation to the source. How loud the noise is should be the next thing to assess. This will require the assessor to have a discordance meter to measure the level of sound. Normal sound levels should be below 75decibels. Any sound above this is a hazard to the people working around that place.

After finding out that the sound levels at the workplace are harmful, an evaluator needs to see the measures that the company has taken to minimize this. There are numerous measures that can be taken but most places utilize hearing protection control units. In some situations, these measures do work but in some scenarios they do not.

Since the sound effects cannot be minimized, assessment continues. Correct measurements ought to be taken to correctly establish exposure levels to particular employees. At this level, the equipment used to collect the data is advanced than the latter example the noise dosimeter. Before the person collects data, he or she ought to be properly trained on the use of the instrument and its features to collect and interpret data properly.

The third step that follows after taking all the above measures is calling professional help. The organization therefore sets to look for an external consultant who comes with sophisticated instruments to collect data. It is good that a team be formed at the work place to work together with the consultant to provide additional information that the professional may need and hence make work easier.

Once the professional has finished carrying out the noise assessment, he comes up with a report. This report contains all information people at the work area ought to know concerning the hazard; its effects are proposed measures to rectify the problem. It will be up to the organization to implement the report in order to protect its workers.




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