BSIF innovation award for QuietDose
Howard Leight in-ear dosimeter wins Product Innovation award from British Safety Industry Foundation
THE British Safety Industry Federation (BSIF) has awarded its 2011 Product Innovation Award, which is designed to recognize new and innovative products that contribute to improvements in occupational safety and health, to the Howard Leight QuietDose in-ear dosimeter.
QuietDose is said to be the first and only personal dosimeter that measures and records a worker’s actual in-ear exposure to noise over an entire work shift, and is a major advance towards stopping the progression of occupational hearing loss and ensuring employer compliance with hearing safety regulations.
‘We are committed to providing a more holistic approach to occupational hearing loss prevention,’ said Ian Shepherd, hearing national product sales manager for Honeywell Safety Products in the UK. ‘We are honoured to be recognized by the British Safety Industry for QuietDose and the pursuit of a more deterministic and preventive approach towards hearing conservation in the workplace.’
QuietDose’s in-ear dosimeter measures the actual noise levels reaching a worker’s eardrums in real time, over an entire work shift and while they are both protected and unprotected. When worn as hearing protection, it measures sound pressure levels inside the protector.
During periods when it is not worn, such as rest periods, QuietDose continues to measure the ambient noise levels in order to record the worker’s actual noise exposure throughout the working day.
As a result, QuietDose provides safety managers with an unprecedented level of personalized data to create the most customized and effective hearing conservation programmes for each worker. This in turn results in fewer documented cases of occupational hearing loss for employees, and fewer claims and lower compensation costs for employers.
Supervisors can also use the personalized data to improve productivity by better managing worker deployment in areas of extreme noise. QuietDose also allows workers to personally monitor and control their own noise exposure in real time. Flashing alerts indicate when noise exposure reaches or exceeds prescribed limits.
