New consideration for preventing hand-arm vibration syndromes  Seminar

In July 2002 the European Union published the Directive 2002/44/EC the Physical Agents (Vibration) Directive (PA(V)D). This directive is intended as a guide for the employer who has employees using vibrating hand-held power tools, and give practical tips regarding what can be done to reduce vibration exposure from hand-held power tools. The Directive lays down the minimum standards for the health and safety of workers exposed to hand-arm vibration and supports the general requirements for improving health and safety that are outlined in the Framework Directive (2006/42/EC).

Although many countries are accepting the Tool Vibration Declaration Values by assessing the ISO 28927 series (Test Protocols) or the vibration measurement values for preventing HAVS (Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome) according to these EU Directives, the number of HAVS patient cannot reduce in the world.

Researchers have been demonstrated the usage problems that the Tool Vibration Declaration Values from the test protocols can’t apply to the real work conditions and they are showing the new evaluation method or equipment to measure the HTV (Hand Transmitted Vibration) with Annex D of ISO 5349-1 standard need to develop for preventing HAVS and assessing the risk in the working condition.

In this seminar, I am going to present the consideration of the simple wearable equipment of the HTV measurement on the human for preventing HAVS and assessing the risk during work in the workplaces and the trend of ISO/TC108/SC4 committee and the needs of future researches.

Speaker Biography

Setsuo Maeda was born in Osaka, in 1952.

He received his Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree from Kinki University in 1975, and received Master of Engineering and Dr of Engineering degrees in 1977 and 1985, respectively, from University of Osaka Prefecture and received Dr of Medical Science degree in 2003 from Kumamoto University.

He was research associate in Kinki University, Department of Industrial Engineering in 1978, where he was promoted as a lecturer and an associate professor in 1984 and 1995, respectively. He moved to National Institute of Industrial Health as a senior researcher in 2006. He was promoted as a Director of National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in 2006. He was an Adjunct Professor in Kanagawa Institute of Technology, Kitasato University, and Mie University from 2006.

His current research interests include Human Response to Multi-Axis Vibration, Multi-modal perception, Gene Expression of Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome and Wearable Technology for Preventing HAVS.

He was a member of ASJ and INCE/J. Also, he was an expert of ISO/TC108/SC4 committee and a chairperson of ISO/TC108/SC4 in Japan.  He retired from Kindai University on 31 March 2019.  He moved to Edinburgh to continue his researches of Human Response to Vibration.  Now he is continuing his researches at Reactec Ltd as a Chief Scientific Liaison from 1 April 2019 and he became a Visiting Professor of Nottingham Trent University since 31 August 2018.

He became a Chairman of ISO/TC108/SC4 from 1 January 2020.