Mirey Bonfil
Personal Safety Division Application Engineer
3M
The year was 1950 and the Swedish Air Force had a problem: how to protect workers’ hearing in very loud environments while still allowing them to communicate effectively. Prior to 1950, the only way to hear radio communications in high-noise situations was to turn up the radio volume, increasing the noise level, compounding the problem and potentially accelerating noise induced hearing loss. But Tore Palmaerhad a better idea: what if you were able to block out the hazardous surrounding noise while still allowing the communication through? So, Tore Palmaer got to work and PELTORTM Protective Communications was born.Much has changed since 1950, but workers in challenging, sometimes dangerous environments continue to demand high-quality, robust solutions that will meet their needs. 3MTM PELTORTM headsets are designed to meet this challenge by providing protective communication solutions that workers can rely on. With production facilities in several countries, 3MTM PELTORTMsupplies both traditional over the ear and innovative inearsolutions to industry worldwide as well as elite tactical military
teams and law enforcement. The 3MTM PELTORTM brand is built tough for the working professional.
The year is 2021 and pandemy is a reality, we have to adapt our new normal life on the field. We would think that changing in our working life;
• Trying to get used to new routines – new normal
• The increase in the importance given to hygiene compared to the past
* Paying extra attention to the hygiene and cleaning of personal protective equipment
* Avoiding constant hand contact
• Change of given job descriptions depending on the contact
• Maintaining a minimum distance of 1.5-2 meters in order to maintain social distance
• Employees who did not even use respiratory protective masks in the past now have to wear surgical masks, and accordingly, preventing the reading of their mouths/lips can be given as a few examples.
When we look at the above items, the inability to read the mouths/lips creates different situations. There are situations such as the change of speech frequency caused by the mask, the need to shout more in order to understand the speech of the other party, and the inability to read
the lips. As a result of all these situations, communication became difficult.
During the pandemic process, it has also become a necessity to communicate in accordance with the new normal while continuing to work. However, if there is noise in the working environment while maintaining social distance, it is necessary to create new formulas to communicate. For this reason, using communication headphones not only creates convenience for everyone in our new normal life, but also helps to protect our health. We can list the conveniences as follows:
• Conducive to increase production efficiency, minimizing work interruption (According to a study conducted in 2015, researchers at Lund University in Sweden found that the use of two-way communication headsets in a construction job increased productivity by 380 minutes per week, increasing the productivity rate from 71% to 86%. detected).
• It provides clean, clear and fast communication.
• It helps to increase workplace safety as it can detect objects, forklifts and the location of objects and forklifts according to the direction of the incoming sound.
• It also helps to protect hearing as it will reduce hearing loss.
• Employees’ ability to communicate with their friends and, when necessary, to communicate with their mobile phones without removing the ear protection equipment will increase the motivation of the employees.
The items written above are just a few examples of the advantages of communication headsets. So what is a communication headset?
The main feature of communication headsets is to protect the employee from noise, while at the same time allowing him/her to communicate. Communication headsets can be divided into several different tabs. The important thing here is to find the product that is suitable for the environment to be used and the requirements of the job. Mentioning a few different terminologies here will make it easier to choose.
Level depending: It is the feature of absorbing all the sounds coming from the environment and damping the noises that may cause hearing loss, while transmitting the sound of the forklift, hearing the alarms, making the conversations to be heard from a certain distance and even making the employee feel the direction the sound is coming from.
Bluetooth: It is the feature of connecting the headset to the mobile phone using the Bluetooth feature.
Voice Operating Transmission (VOX): It is the ability of the microphone to actively transmit the voice to itself with speech. In this way, both hands remain free, providing convenience in the working environment.
Noise-cancelling microphone: The microphone distinguishes the speech sound from the surrounding noise, and ensures that the voice goes to the other party clearly and clearly. No matter how clean and clear the communication is, people’s repetition of conversations can cause a waste of time, and at the same time, misunderstandings can cause great damage.
Two-way communication: It provides mutual communication like radios.
In some cases, if the noise level is not very high, it may be necessary to use an earplug or earmuffs that detect environmental sounds as ear protection equipment. In some cases, if wireless communication is desired, connecting to a mobile phone with bluetooth feature or using self-radio products may be an option. As a result, in social distance conditions, our new normal, especially if there is noise, the use of communication headsets in order to communicate within the factory, increase production efficiency and protect employee health has a much more important place today.
