hearing loss
hearing loss
(OP)
hello
pubmed is full of articles claiming that factory workers working in noisy environments lose irreversibly their hearing
hearing protection doesn't seem to help much
I am extremely concerned about this and I would like to know from people in the industry, how noisy the engineering work environment can be
are there factories/plants that are less noisy?
for example chemical/pharmaceutical/cosmetics factories are almost noiseless?
what about food factories?
are you concerned about hearing loss? what do you do about it?
thanks
pubmed is full of articles claiming that factory workers working in noisy environments lose irreversibly their hearing
hearing protection doesn't seem to help much
I am extremely concerned about this and I would like to know from people in the industry, how noisy the engineering work environment can be
are there factories/plants that are less noisy?
for example chemical/pharmaceutical/cosmetics factories are almost noiseless?
what about food factories?
are you concerned about hearing loss? what do you do about it?
thanks





RE: hearing loss
how much of the time of a maintenance engineer is spent on the noisy factory? or maybe most of this role involves work when the machines are shut down? can you give me some insight please?
RE: hearing loss
I THINK MINE STARTED GOING WHEN I WORKED IN AN AIRCRAFT FACTORY.
Chris
SolidWorks 13
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: hearing loss
because I read a meta-analysis from Cochrane in Pubmed, where they said the evidence isn't enough
and another one research that despite hearing protection, there were hearing loss among workers
RE: hearing loss
Good luck,
Latexman
Technically, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.
RE: hearing loss
RE: hearing loss
I also conducted about a hundred sea trials of our product, each comprising a couple of hours in a closed, hot engineroom with a pretty big Diesel or two working at full power.
I was careful to use the hearing protection provided, and have suffered no noticeable hearing loss.
That said, most ear protection is uncomfortable, especially when you are hot and sweaty, so there is a strong temptation to remove it.
A friend of mine worked in a blow-molding shop, equipped with a huge noisy shredder to immediately recycle parts that weren't quite right. The old timers who worked there didn't like wearing ear protection because it was uncomfortable, and asserted that they got used to the noise after a few months on the job. I.e., they lost some hearing, but were too ignorant to realize what was going on.
On a somewhat related note, I worked in a Ni-Cd battery shop where part of the battery plates were sandblasted, and the workers had gotten out of the habit of wearing the supplied respirators, so they were breathing metal dust that is an alleged carcinogen. I had a long talk with the most belligerent of the bunch, who asserted that if he got sick, the company would pay his hospital bills until he got well. I couldn't get him to understand that if he got sick, the company would indeed pay his medical bills, until he died. So I threatened to fire him on the spot if I ever caught him without a respirator on his face again, and I told him to go talk to his union rep to see how much the union would do to get his job back. ... which was precisely nothing; it was in the contract, and a matter of black letter law, that refusal to wear provided PPE is grounds for dismissal. Whenever I saw him after that, he would wave and point to the respirator on his face. I doubt that management kept up the pressure; they bitched about the cost of the respirator filters.
Back to your concern; the research has been done, and there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to support it.
In the US, a number of government agencies require that appropriate PPE be provided, at no cost to the worker, but enforcement is somewhat less than universal.
If you want to do the world a favor, become a PPE designer and make it more comfortable to wear.
In fairness, I should point out that in addition to chronic hazards like carcinogen exposure and hearing loss, there are probably enough acute hazards to provde a thousand ways to die in any given factory, so you should take all appropriate precautions, use common sense, read up on what you're doing, and especially, pay attention in the workplace, and you'll have a fair chance of getting old and cranky like me, and dying of something other than a workplace hazard.
I should also point out that making a fuss about hazards and stuff like that during an interview will exclude you from the job, unless that is the job.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: hearing loss
“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
-Dalai Lama XIV
RE: hearing loss
It's not really that hard when you have the lateral blast from an M-14 flash suppressor hit your ear from three feet away with no protection.
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
RE: hearing loss
I've also had to do an on wing inspection of a store on the inboard pylon of a Harrier with the engines running - that was noisy and I was wearing combo ear plugs & head set.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: hearing loss
TTFN

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RE: hearing loss
Good luck,
Latexman
Technically, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.
RE: hearing loss
If you don't like the company supplied protectors talk to your OSHA people, find what spec they are recommending, and go to a shop and try some on until you find a comfortable set. Hearing aids cost a damn sight more than muffs.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: hearing loss
Google it.
RE: hearing loss
Good luck,
Latexman
Technically, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.
RE: hearing loss
cite?
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: hearing loss
- Steve
RE: hearing loss
But yes use them!!.. when your working in a high pressure steam plant running turbines it can get pretty noisy. or when a relief goes off when you don't expect it..do you hear what Im saying......what! I said did you hear what Im saying
RE: hearing loss
TTFN

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RE: hearing loss
> 7 Oct 13 20:42
> "hearing protection doesn't seem to help much"
>
> cite?
"Noise attenuation ratings of hearing protection under field conditions were consistently lower than the ratings provided by the manufacturers."
"There is very low quality evidence that the better use of hearing protection devices as part of HLPPs reduces the risk of hearing loss"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23076923
RE: hearing loss
No citation, but results of an engineering discussion with a very good Safety Guy I know. I was pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity, the focus of which was to automate a very noisy process & remove the operators from the area. The manufacturer had received an OSHA citation for a noisy environment and hearing loss of their workers. I thought the justification of my proposal would be economic, but no, it was noise abatement. The manufacturer had to limit the amount of exposure to each worker.
My Safety Guy friend explained it to me:
(1) exposure is accumulative, it is time-limited and a function of decibel level exposure. So many hours of so many decibels per time period. Then the worker had to go push a broom in a quieter area until next week.
(2) Safety Guy spoke of recent research indicating foam ear plugs provide "pretty good" protection. Headgear/earmuffs did not provide protection as good as ear plugs. The best option was (a) combo of ear plugs & ear muffs and (b) rigorous observance of time-based exposure limits.
TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering
www.bluetechnik.com
RE: hearing loss
RE: hearing loss
My understanding is that the ratings are based more on the materials the hearing protection devices are made of tested in lab conditions rather than in a more applied setting. So one thing I've been told is that many of the ear plugs with the best ratings don't work as well in real life because they don't seal into the ear as well as some lower rated wax plugs etc.
"The effectiveness of hearing protection devices depends on training and their proper use. There is very low quality evidence that the better use of hearing protection devices as part of HLPPs reduces the risk of hearing loss, whereas for other programme components of HLPPs we did not find such an effect."
So while the evidence may be low quality, they are the only thing they found any evidence of working if I read it correctly.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: hearing loss
The burdens of age-related and occupational noise-induced hearing loss in the United States.
Dobie RA.
SourceDepartment of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California, Davis, CA 95817, USA. radobie@ucdavis.edu
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Aging and noise are generally considered the most common causes of adult hearing loss in developed countries. This study estimates the contributions of aging and occupational noise in the United States.
DESIGN: A model of hearing loss burden in American adults was constructed using data from the Census Bureau, from an international standard that predicts age-related and noise-induced hearing loss (ISO-1999), from the American Medical Association method of determining hearing impairment, and from sources estimating the distribution of occupational noise exposure in different age and sex groups.
RESULTS: Occupational noise exposure probably accounts for less than 10% of the burden of adult hearing loss in the United States; most of the rest is age-related. Most of the occupational noise burden is attributable to unprotected exposures above 95 dBA, and becomes apparent in middle age, when occupational noise exposure has ceased but age-related threshold shifts are added to prior noise-induced shifts, resulting in clinically significant impairment.
CONCLUSIONS: In our current state of knowledge, noise-induced hearing loss is still the most important preventable cause of hearing loss in the United States. The burden of occupational noise-induced hearing loss could probably be reduced by stricter enforcement of existing regulations. Longer lifespans in developed countries and migration of manufacturing jobs to developing countries will continue to reduce the relative contribution of occupational hearing loss in countries like the United States. Preventive interventions for age-related hearing loss, even if only partially effective, could potentially reduce the burden of adult hearing loss more than elimination of occupational noise.
Good luck,
Latexman
Technically, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.
RE: hearing loss
this is logical, since very few are exposed to serious occupational noise
it doesn't actually say that you are going to lose your hearing possibly from ageing and not noise
RE: hearing loss
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC174036... The prevalence ratios cited here are mostly less than 10%, even for those that reported working in a noisy environment. Obviously, not a fully rigorous experiment, but indicative, at any rate.
For those that don't wear any protection at all, the statistics are worse:
http://www.who.int/quantifying_ehimpacts/global/6n...
TTFN

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RE: hearing loss
- Steve
RE: hearing loss
Good luck,
Latexman
Technically, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.
RE: hearing loss
It's a good idea to be concerned about hearing loss in a job. But I wouldn't normally consider it a deal breaker in considering an industrial position. The effects can usually be mitigated in most circumstances by wearing the appropriate protection. And noise is usually the least of your worries. There are a LOT of other potential hazards that can be much more serious.
In my current position when I came in we had a hard chrome plating line that was used every day of the week, primarily for rework purposes. It used hexavalent chrome. Nasty, carcinogenic stuff. I shut the entire line down six months after I started here, and I'm very glad that I did. Now we outsource that work to other companies who specialize in those types of platings. They can have it.
Maui
www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com
RE: hearing loss
also, please describe the activities of the plant and the protection you use
RE: hearing loss
- Steve
RE: hearing loss
While hearing loss may be inevitable in many cases, it doesn't have to happen in middle age. That is entirely under your control.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: hearing loss
I believe Pete Townshend (the Who) is deaf in one ear, wonder why?
RE: hearing loss
If you propose to take up engineering / supervision as a career, from a personal perspective, who really cares how noisy the shop floor is.?? Ill guarantee no shop floor comes any where close to 130dBA
RE: hearing loss
RE: hearing loss
RE: hearing loss
In most outfits of my experience, a 'Plant Engineer' takes care of the buildings and the infrastructure, and a 'Manufacturing Engineer' takes care of the production machinery and the process, among other things.
Either of them would be perceived as irresponsible and insular if they spent less than half their day outside of their office space.
Also, if the factory is noisy enough to be hazardous, reducing or mitigating that noise, or the exposure to it, becomes part of their shared responsibility.
Have you considered mortuary work?
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: hearing loss
RE: hearing loss
In a well-run/managed factory, it'll be a really rare thing. Otherwise, you might be there every day or other day.
TTFN

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RE: hearing loss
assuming I will work in a well-run factory and again assuming most factories are well-run, why the maintenance/manufacturing engineer rarely spends time in the noisy environment of the factory? is this logical?
RE: hearing loss
RE: hearing loss
RE: hearing loss
What is the price of tea in Bankok?
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
RE: hearing loss
Why wouldn't it be? A well-run/managed company would be taking good care of their equipment, doing the required preventative maintenance, etc. A well-maintained car basically only goes to the shop every 6000 miles for routine maintenance.
TTFN

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RE: hearing loss
Didn't think there would be another one of these threads.
OP please rethink this sector of the job market if you are so concerned.
You could try perhaps finding a job where you can work from home, and therefore never have to go outside and risk breathing in that toxic outdoor air.
RE: hearing loss
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: hearing loss
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: hearing loss