Noise Control

In challenging industrial environments, effective noise management is crucial for worker safety and regulatory compliance. Bureau Veritas, a global leader in testing, inspection, and certification services, has developed an innovative solution to address this critical need: the Noise Exposure Management System (NEMS).

NEMS: A Comprehensive Approach to Noise Management

NEMS is a proprietary, comprehensive management system developed and offered exclusively by Bureau Veritas. It provides a systematic approach to noise management, ensuring consistency and effective comparability in determining noise risk across industries. While initially developed for the oil and gas sector, NEMS can be deployed across any industry where there are high-risk noise areas.

The system has become so widely adopted that it is now considered the industry standard for risk assessment of occupational noise by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Key Features of NEMS:

1. Exposure Level Calculation: NEMS accurately calculates noise exposure levels for the workforce, identifying areas or tasks that contribute most significantly to noise exposures.
2. Targeted Risk Reduction: By pinpointing the highest contributing areas to people's noise exposure, NEMS allows for a targeted approach to implementing noise control measures.
3. Compliance Monitoring: The system provides recording facilities for assessing ongoing compliance and demonstrates commitment to reducing noise exposure.
4. Key Performance Indicators: NEMS results can be used to quantify KPIs related to noise exposure risk.
5. Adaptability: As a live and evolving system, NEMS can easily incorporate new areas, trades, and work patterns, ensuring the risk assessment remains up-to-date.

Practical Applications and Benefits

NEMS offers a range of practical benefits for industries dealing with high noise levels:

NEMS Output

The system provides valuable outputs, including:

1. Area Ranking Scores: Determines the highest contributing areas to people's noise exposure, helping prioritize noise control efforts.
2. Personnel Noise Exposure: Predicts individual noise exposure based on measured levels and work patterns, ensuring appropriate categorization under relevant legislation.
3. Detailed Noise Exposure Information: Helps manage workforce exposure by clearly indicating action value groups and contributing areas.
4. Log Sheet: Automatically tracks updates, calculates new KPIs, and plots graphs showing Asset Score and number of lower and upper action value cases over time.

Industry-Wide Adoption

The effectiveness of NEMS is evidenced by its widespread adoption. The large majority of oil and gas assets located onshore and offshore within the UK currently operate Bureau Veritas' NEMS. The client list includes major players in the industry such as BP, Shell, Total, Apache North Sea, and many others across various sectors.

Compliance and Expertise

Bureau Veritas' Acoustics and Vibration team, a specialist division, has extensive experience providing noise management services to the Oil & Gas sector across both UK continental shelf waters and worldwide. Their expertise ensures that NEMS not only calculates exposure levels but also helps clients achieve compliance with the Control of Noise at Work Regulations.

Conclusion

As industries strive to create safer work environments, especially in high-risk sectors, solutions like Bureau Veritas' NEMS play a crucial role. By providing a comprehensive, adaptable, and widely-recognized system for noise management, NEMS helps companies across various industries protect their workforce, comply with regulations, and demonstrate their commitment to occupational health and safety.

In practice noise date are not always consistent. Noise at machines can stem from unknown sources. It is important to know what noise levels can be found in the system and what causes them. PRUFTECHNIK Condition Monitoring performs acceptance measurements of noise emissions and compares the results with the latest standards. If necessary, suitable measures for noise reduction are identified and recommended. Measurements are made with the data analyzer VIBXPERT and evaluated with DBSpectra and the software OMNITREND. Dominant noise sources can be identified using third octave or narrow band spectra.
 

“Achievable noise reductions, e.g. in gear drives, can be up to 5 dB: through measures on housings, up to 7 dB: through measures on rotors, toothing and housings and up to 10 dB: through secondary noise shields or enclosures” says Dr. Edwin Becker, Manager Service and Diagnostic Center.

The doseBadge is the unique way to measure Occupational and Industrial noise exposure. Different to a traditional Noise Dosemeter, the doseBadge has no cables or buttons, and is controlled, via an InfraRed link, from the RC:110A Reader unit.

The doseBadge has no buttons or controls and is contained in a robust metal case which prevents damage to the unit. The doseBadge logs, measures and stores noise data throughout the measurement and this data is downloaded to the Reader unit for review and analysis.

By eliminating cable and controls from the doseBadge, the user can be sure that the person being measured cannot have tampered with the measurement and that the data is valid. The CR:110A version of the doseBadge has been designed to meet the needs of the new EU Physical Agents (Noise) Directive as well as a range of other noise measurement standards.