A workplace noise assessment establishes what your people are actually exposed to, measured against the exposure limit and action values in the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations. We quantify noise and vibration exposure, identify the sources that genuinely drive it, and set out proportionate control measures that work on a live site.
A workplace noise assessment measures the noise your employees are actually exposed to across a working day, compares it against the action values and exposure limit value set in law, and identifies what has to change. Allegro Acoustics carries out workplace noise assessments, occupational noise surveys and hand-arm and whole-body vibration assessments across Ireland and the UK, and follows them through to control measures that work on a live site.
Our assessments go beyond simple measurement. We map noise sources, identify the dominant contributors and recommend targeted controls that address the actual risk, not generic solutions that cost more than they need to.
A workplace noise assessment establishes the daily personal noise exposure, LEX,8h, for each group of employees carrying out similar work, together with the peak sound pressure level they are exposed to. Those two figures are what the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations are written around, and they are what an inspector will ask to see.
Getting them right means understanding the work before the measurement. Two operators on the same machine can carry very different exposures if one of them spends half the shift in a control room. We build the assessment around real work patterns, taken from the people doing the job, rather than around a convenient sample of the loudest half hour.
The regulations set a lower exposure action value of 80 dB(A), an upper exposure action value of 85 dB(A) and an exposure limit value of 87 dB(A) assessed behind hearing protection. Each threshold triggers a different duty, running from making hearing protection available, through mandatory use and marked hearing protection zones, to an immediate requirement to reduce exposure. A workplace noise risk assessment that reports a single site average does not tell you which of those duties has been triggered, or for whom, which is the question the assessment exists to answer.
Where work is mobile, variable or unpredictable, a fixed position measurement will not represent it. Dosimetry, using body worn dosimeters across a full shift, captures the whole exposure including the parts nobody thinks to mention. We use dosimetry alongside hand held Class 1 measurement rather than instead of it, because the dosimeter tells you what the exposure is and the sound level meter tells you where it came from.
An occupational noise assessment on a working production site has to fit around the process. Our engineers plan the occupational noise survey so that measurement happens during representative production rather than during a quiet changeover, and so that output is not disrupted while it takes place.
A workplace noise survey across the floor area, plotted as noise contours, shows where hearing protection zones genuinely need to sit rather than where they have historically been drawn. It also ranks the machines that drive the exposure, and that list is usually far shorter than people expect. Knowing it is what makes targeted control affordable instead of treating every item of plant as equally responsible. Our guide to workplace noise monitoring sets out how a one off survey and an ongoing monitoring programme fit together.
The same regulations cover vibration exposure, and it is the duty most often missed. Hand-arm vibration from powered hand tools and whole-body vibration from vehicles and working platforms each carry daily exposure action and limit values, and both are assessed on the same pattern of measured magnitude multiplied by real task duration. We carry out vibration monitoring and exposure assessment alongside the noise work, because the same people are usually exposed to both and a single site visit covers it. Our guide to vibration monitoring, isolation and control explains how the measurement and the mitigation relate to each other.
Hearing protection is the last line of defence, not the first. Where exposure has to come down, the durable answer is engineering control at the source, and that is work our engineers deliver rather than recommend to somebody else. Enclosure, damping, isolation, silencing and simple changes to layout or work pattern are all cheaper across the life of a plant than a hearing conservation programme that has to run indefinitely. Where noise leaving the building is an issue as well, the same source data feeds straight into industrial noise control design.
If you are not sure which duties apply to your site, our guide to workplace noise regulations in Ireland explains the framework in plain language, including who is responsible for what and how often assessments need repeating.
Workplace noise assessment is routine work for us in pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing, food and drink production, power generation and heavy engineering. Recent examples include exposure assessment and control at Cargill Ireland in Naas, at Lufthansa Turbine Technik in Shannon and across the River Erne hydro-electric stations. If your sector is not listed, the method does not change.
Wherever employees may be exposed at or above the lower exposure action value of 80 dB(A). A practical rule of thumb is that if people have to raise their voices to be understood about two metres apart, the level is likely to warrant assessment. It should be repeated whenever plant, process, layout or working hours change.
A workplace noise survey maps levels across the floor area and ranks the sources driving them. Dosimetry measures what one person actually receives across a full shift. We use both, because the dosimeter tells you what the exposure is and the sound level meter tells you where it came from.
No. Hearing protection is the last line of defence, not the first. The exposure limit value of 87 dB(A) is assessed behind the protection, and the underlying duty is still to reduce exposure at source where that is reasonably practicable. Protection manages the residual risk rather than removing it.
Yes. The same Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations set daily exposure action and limit values for hand-arm vibration from powered tools and for whole-body vibration from vehicles and platforms. We assess both alongside the noise work, because the same people are usually exposed to both.
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