Railway musuem on track with noise monitoring

Anna Kavanagh is the group health & safety advisor for the Science Museum Group and responsible for both the London Science Museum and National Railway Museum sites. While visitors enjoy the front of house entertainment, it’s what’s going on behind the scenes that is more likely to pose a potential headache for Anna when it comes to protecting employees’ hearing.

Both museums sites have their own workshops that are used for maintenance as well as for creating displays for the exhibitions that take place. 

Anna bought two Cirrus doseBadge kits as the employees based in the workshop had access to up to 40 different types of equipment and, whilst they were not using them for very long, it was hard to monitor on a consistent basis the noise levels to which they were being subjected.

"They may only be cutting out shapes for a display for a few seconds but it is high intensity noise and I needed to be confident this didn’t take them over their daily allowance,” explained Anna. "The doseBadges are ideal because they don’t get in the way of the day to day working but give me the full picture of what the employee has been exposed to during a typical shift.

"Fortunately we found this time that those we monitored were all well within the 135dB peak levels, and they didn’t exceed their daily limits either, so it was very helpful.” 

The doseBadge enables Anna to get the data she needs over a full shift to ensure that the workers aren’t being subjected to high levels of noise that would take them over the UK Noise at Work levels. It also means that she doesn't have to devote a day of her time to each employee to monitor them using other static methods.

She also like the easy to use software that comes as standard with the dosebadges. "It gives you the full picture,” she said. "You know you have the evidence there to reply on over a set period of time.”

doseBadge Tech Spec:

Each kit contains the doseBadge along with a reader unit, chargers, power supply, mounting kits, software, user manuals, USB cable, certificates of calibration and batteries for the reader unit.

Kits can be expanded with additional doseBadges and charger units as required. These can be either standard CR:110A doseBadges or the Intrinsically Safe CR:110AIS. Optional items can be added to enhance the operation and use of the doseBadge Measurement Kit.