Heather Bryant, Balfour Beatty’s Health, Safety, Environment and Sustainability Director, was recently interviewed by Construction Manager, discussing how the company intends to design out Hand Arm Vibration syndrome (HAVS) across all Balfour Beatty sites by 2020.
Heather discusses how the traditional measures to tackle HAVS, primarily using the Health & Safety Executive’s exposure points system to ensure that workers exposure to the side-effects of HAVS are below a ‘recommended level’, is not the right approach for the industry to adopt in isolation.
Discussing the various methods in place across Balfour Beatty sites, Heather provides alternative approaches and solutions already in use by the company. This includes replacing the requirement to drill for the installation of Mechanical and Electrical (M&E) elements with Unistrut channels into the underside of precast floor slabs. This easy switch eliminates the need to drill on site, removes dust exposure, whilst also resulting in an estimated 75% reduction in working at height. Combined, this activity also yielded a one day a week saving on the traditional M&E programme of works.
Through this approach, Balfour Beatty is already operating sites where drilling is now no longer in use.
Applying this approach across Balfour Beatty’s supply chain has enabled the company to engage with experts across the industry in identifying further opportunities to drive out HAVS in the construction industry.
To read the article in Construction Manager in full and discover Balfour Beatty’s “Hateful Eight” approach to HAVS, click here.
ENDS
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Notes to editors:
- Balfour Beatty (balfourbeatty.com) is a leading international infrastructure group. With 28,000 employees, we provide innovative and efficient infrastructure that underpins our daily lives, supports communities and enables economic growth. We finance, develop, build and maintain complex infrastructure such as transportation, power and utility systems, social and commercial buildings.
- Our main geographies are the UK & Ireland, US and Far East. Over the last 100 years we have created iconic buildings and infrastructure all over the world including the London Olympics’ Aquatic Centre, Hong Kong’s first Zero Carbon building, the National Museum of the Marine Corps in the US and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
