Reactec, the market leader in monitoring and management platforms for hand and arm vibration (HAV), has won the prestigious Health & Safety award at the recent Speedy Expo Awards for their ground breaking HAVwear technology which impressed the judges.
Edinburgh-based Reactec is the UK market leader in the provision of monitoring devices and a management information reporting platform for HAV risks – the cause of one of the most common industrial diseases in the UK, White Finger Syndrome or HAVS (hand Arm Vibration Syndrome).
The award criteria for the Health & Safety award was explained by the Speedy Expo judges: ‘health and safety of Speedy’s employees and customers is something that we take seriously. Speedy actively seeks products and initiatives that offer real improvements in this area. This award was quite simply, for a product, process or service that offers significant health and safety benefits and/or addresses an existing problem. The Reactec product is a wrist worn device to advise workers of tool vibration risk. It informs the wearer of their exposure by calculating and displaying in real-time their HSE HAV risk assessment exposure points. Sound and vibration alerts inform the wearer if their personalised exposure thresholds have been exceeded.’
HAVS, which is also known as Vibration White Finger, is one of the most common industrial diseases in the UK. The condition is usually caused by the prolonged use of power hand tools, whose vibrations can damage the blood vessels, nerves, muscles and joints of the hand, wrist and arm. 300,000 people in the UK suffer from the condition, for which there is no known cure, only prevention.
The awards ceremony followed a successful Speedy Hire show where Reactec provided a successful live demonstration in front of an audience comparing the vibration readings from the HAVwear worn by a tool user while using a tool which was under measurement according to the requirements of ISO5349. The results showed that HAVwear provides representative data when assessing exposure…live. Reactec will release a whitepaper in the coming months documenting the results of their performance tests of HAVwear.
Jacqui McLaughlin, Chief Executive of Reactec (pictured receiving the award) said: “We are proud to win this Health & Safety award at the Speedy Expo. At Reactec we work hard with our customers to help them promote a workplace culture that creates a safe and, with equal importance, a healthy environment for their workers using vibrating equipment.
“At the Speedy expo we carried out a live demonstration of the system to clearly show that our equipment does provide a more realistic real-time assessment of the risk faced during tool use than traditional assessment methodologies. This is the direct person related information that businesses need to avoid their workers developing HAVs which is incurable but preventable.”
