Role In Respect Of These Regulations

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2008, as amended 2009 [implement Directive 2002/95/EC and restrict the use of certain hazardous materials (lead, cadmium, mercury, etc.) in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment. The National Measurement Office enforces the provisions of these Regulations.

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 is a United Kingdom Statutory Instrument that states general requirements on employers to protect employees and other persons from the hazards of substances used at work by risk assessment, control of exposure, health surveillance and incident planning. There are also duties on employees' to take care of their own exposure to hazardous substances and prohibitions on the import of certain substances into the European Economic Area. The regulations reenacted with amendments the Control of Substances Hazardous to Work Regulations 1999 and implement several European Union directives.

The regulations are complementary to the Chemicals (Hazard Information and Packaging for Supply) Regulations 2002 (CHIPS) which require labeling of hazardous substances by suppliers. There are other regulations concerning the labeling and signage of pipes and containers (Sch.7), and from 2008 a further level of control mechanism on dangerous chemicals will be added by the EU regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH).

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations have been in place for more than 20 years and the scientific evidence suggests that over this time industry has, in general, been consistently reducing exposure to hazardous substances.

Daniel has to obey this Act when working with chemicals. This Act requires employers to protect employees and others from the hazards of substances used at work.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Regulations

The Personal Protective Equipment (EC Directive) Regulations 1992 (as amended in 1993, 1994 & 1996) implement Directive 89/686/EC, as amended, concerning the basic safety requirements of most personal protective equipment whether for use at work or elsewhere. All enforcement of these Regulations for both professional and private use - covering importer, manufacturer and supplier - is undertaken by trading standards services.

Every time my engineer enters the shop floor, he must be aware of the PPE safety regulations within AVX. Due to on-going work on the shop floor, welding, machining for example, my engineer should comply with the following:

Compliance

How to comply

Provision

The employer must provide suitable PPE when the risk cannot be controlled by other means.

Suitable

PPE must be appropriate to the risks involved and the work done. It must take account of ergonomic factors and the state of health of the user and must fit the user. It must comply with relevant European Community Directives where they apply.

Compatibility

Where more than one item of PPE has to be worn, they must be compatible and effective when worn together.

Risk Assessment

Before buying any PPE the employer must do a risk assessment to identify the risks that cannot be controlled by other means and to make sure that the PPE protects against those risks.

Maintenance

The employer must ensure that PPE is maintained in good repair and cleaned or replaced as often as necessary

Accommodation

The employer must provide storage for protective equipment when it is not in use

Training

The employer must provide staff with information, instruction and training on the risks the PPE is intended to avoid, the use of the PPE and steps the employees are expected to take to maintain the PPE.

Use

The employer must take steps to ensure that PPE provided is properly used

Employees' duties

Employees must use PPE as directed and must report any loss or obvious defect to the employer.

Provision and use of Work Equipment Regulations

These are regulations AVX and its manager must ensure that my engineer follows and is provided with the correct equipment, rest and clothing when working within the facilities of that company.

Regulation

How to comply

Suitability

The employer must make sure that work equipment is suitable for the purpose intended, taking into account the nature of the work, working conditions and risks in their workplace

Maintenance

The employer must ensure that equipment is properly maintained. Where routine maintenance is needed a ’maintenance log’ should be kept

Training

The employer must provide users of equipment and their supervisors with information, instruction and training on the correct use and on foreseeable abnormal situations that might occur when the equipment is being used

Specified machines

Where equipment carries a specific risk, use (and any maintenance, modification or repair) should be restricted to workers with specific training

Access to dangerous machinery

The employer should take measures to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery and to protect against the ejection of articles, substances, gases, liquids, dusts etc.; overheating, fire or explosion, disintegration of parts of equipment, extreme hot or cold surfaces

Controls

The employer must ensure that all controls are safe to use and clearly identifiable. In particular, start and stop controls, including emergency stops, must be designed to ensure health and safety

Isolation

Where appropriate, it must be possible to isolate machinery from its energy source

Stabilisation

Where necessary equipment must be stabilised by clamping or other means

Lighting

Adequate lighting must be provided to allow safe use. Where necessary, clearly visible markings or other warning devices must be fitted

Precautions

Particular precautions are required to ensure that maintenance operations do not give rise to health and safety risks

If a European Community Directive covers a particular piece of equipment the employer must ensure that it complies with the requirements of that Directive.

Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations

These are regulations that AVX must ensure that my engineer follows.

Compliance

How to comply

Maintenance

The workplace and equipment must be maintained in good condition. Where appropriate, there must be a planned system of regular maintenance

Ventilation

Enclosed workplaces must be provided with fresh or purified air

Temperature

A reasonable temperature must be maintained inside the building during working hours. Thermometers must be provided for staff to consult

Lighting

Suitable and sufficient lighting must be provided. Natural light should be used where possible. Emergency lighting must also be provided where necessary

Cleanliness

The workplace and equipment must be kept clean. Waste should not be allowed to accumulate (except in suitable receptacles).

Space

Room dimensions should provide sufficient floor area, height and unoccupied space for the health safety and welfare of the staff

Workstations

Must be suitable for the workers who use them and the work that is done

Seating

Where work can be done sitting, suitable seating must be provided for each person doing that work.

Floors

Should be suitable and not uneven, holed or slippery. They should be kept free from obstruction or contamination likely to cause slipping. Staircases should normally have a handrail.

Falls

Precautions should be taken to prevent people from falling or being struck by falling objects. Tanks or pits must be covered or securely fenced

Windows

Windows, transparent or translucent doors or walls must be made of a safety material or protected against breakage and must be clearly marked. Opening windows must be safe to use. All windows and skylights must be designed to allow safe cleaning

Traffic routes

Design must allow safe circulation of pedestrians and vehicles and traffic routes should be clearly indicated.

Doors and gates

Doors and gates must be suitably constructed. Devices should be fitted to keep sliding doors on their tracks; to prevent upward opening doors from falling back; to ensure safe operation of powered doors. Doors that can be pushed from either side should have panes to provide a clear view of the space around the door.

Escalators

Escalators and moving walkways shall be safe in use, and fitted with necessary safety devices, including emergency stop controls.

Sanitary conveniences

Suitable and sufficient toilets shall be provided at readily accessible places. They must be well ventilated and lit and kept clean. A schedule to the Regulations specifies how many are needed, depending on the number of workers.

Washing facilities

Washing facilities, including showers if needed, with hot and cold water, soap and hygienic means of drying must be provided.

Drinking water

A supply of drinking water must be provided for all workers at readily accessible places.

Clothing

Accommodation must be provided for storage of a person’s own clothing not worn at work; work clothing kept at the workplace; and for changing facilities.

Rest and meals

Suitable rest facilities must be provided at conveniently accessible places. Arrangements must be made to protect non-smokers from discomfort from tobacco smoke in rest rooms and rest areas. Pregnant women and nursing mothers must be given suitable facilities. Facilities for eating meals must be provided where meals are normally taken at work.

Display Screen Equipment (DSE) Regulations

These are regulations that AVX must ensure that my engineer follows:

Regulation

How to comply

Risk Assessment

The employer must make a risk assessment of all workstations that might be used by DSE ‘users’ employed by them.

Risks

The employer must reduce risks to the lowest reasonably practicable level.

Routine

Daily work routine of ‘users’ must be planned so that rest breaks or other types of work periodically interrupt DSE work.

Eye Tests

If they wish it, ‘users’ are entitled to an eye and eyesight test paid for by their employer. The test must be repeated at regular intervals. If it shows that special spectacles or lenses are needed for DSE work, the employer must cover the cost of this as well.

H&S training

The employer must provide ‘users’ with health and safety training on the use of their workstation and with information on the risks and the measures to control those risks.

Manual Handling Operations Regulations

My engineer may on occasion need to lift or move prototypes or products while he is examining a product. Daniel would then need to be aware of the lifting and handling regulations that are employed by AVX. They must ensure that:

The employer must avoid the need for workers to do any manual handling task that involves a risk of injury.

When this cannot be done, the employer must assess the task taking into account the range of risk factors specified in the Regulations.

The employer must reduce the risk involved to the lowest reasonably practicable level.

The employer must provide workers with general indications of the risks and where possible specific information on the weight of each load and the heaviest side of a load with an off-centred centre of gravity.

Employees must make full and proper use of systems of work provided by the employer.

The Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations

These are the regulations that managers of my engineer must provide for him:

Compliance

How to comply

Risks

The employer must assess all significant risks to their employees or to other persons. If there are more than 5 employees a record of the assessment must be kept. The assessment must also identify preventive or protective measures designed to control the risk.

The employer must take particular account of risks to new and expectant mothers when assessing risks. If they cannot be protected from the risk by other means, they must be given paid leave for as long as necessary to protect the health of their child or themselves.

The employer must assess particular risks for young people, taking into account their inexperience, lack of awareness of potential risks and immaturity. If children under minimum school leaving age are employed, the parents must be given details of the risk assessment and control measures.

Arrangements

The employer must make arrangements for effective planning, organisation, control, maintaining and review of health and safety. Where necessary these arrangements should include health surveillance of workers.

Competence

The employer must appoint as many competent persons as are necessary to ensure compliance with health and safety laws. Competent persons must be given sufficient information, training and resources to enable them to do their job.

Procedures

The employer must devise procedures to deal with situations of serious or imminent danger. As part of these emergency procedures, they must nominate competent persons to take charge if evacuation is necessary. They must make sure that access to any danger areas is restricted to those workers who have received appropriate training. They must allow workers to stop work and proceed to a place of safety when faced with a serious or imminent danger. Save for exceptional cases, they must prevent workers from returning to work until the danger is over. They must inform workers exposed to serious or imminent danger of the hazards involved and procedures to follow.

Co-operation

Where two or more employers share a workplace or where employees of one employer visit another's workplace in the course of their work, the employers must co-operate to ensure that their own staff and others are protected. Similar duties apply where an employer hires agency labour from an employment service.

Training

The employer must provide comprehensive and relevant training to all employees on health and safety. They must also provide information to workers on the risks involved, the preventive and protective measures, the emergency procedures and the identity of competent persons responsible for health and safety or for evacuation procedures.

Environmental legislation

As my engineer designs ceramic capacitors, this environmental legislation is a big factor when creating and manufacturing these products. One of my engineers and his company AVX’s objective is to create electrical capacitors that do not pollute the atmosphere.

Engineering activities can have harmful effects on the physical environment and therefore on people. In order for my engineer to minimize these effects, there is a range of legislation that all engineering companies, including AVX, must observe. This is a massive factor in the production of electrical components by my engineer and his company. He must insure that when designing these components that they produce minimal pollution that may harm the atmosphere and the people who live in it.

New Acts and directives are introduced from time to time and Industry needs to be alert to and keep abreast of these changes. Typical of these new initiatives is the European Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) legislation. The EMC Directive recognizes the well-known problem of unwanted electromagnetic noise that emanates from most pieces of electrical equipment (notably computers and other digital equipment) and may cause interference to other services.

The appropriate United Kingdom Acts of Parliament include: Deposit of Poisonous Wastes Act, Pollution of Rivers Act, Clean Air Act, Environmental Protection Act, Health and Safety at Work, etc and the like. Additionally, not only are there local by-laws to be observed there are also European Union (EU) directives that are activated and implemented either through existing UK legislation in the form of Acts of Parliament or mandatory instructions called Statutory Instruments (SI).

In the case of UK Acts of Parliament, the above legislation is implemented by judgement in UK Courts of Justice in the normal manner but based on EU legislation, if more appropriate, or by judgement of the European Court of Justice. The purpose of this legislation is to prevent the environment being damaged in the first place, regulate the amount of damage by stating limits, for example, the maximum permitted amount of liquid pollutant that a factory may discharge into the sea, compensate people for damage caused, for example, from a chemical store catching tire and spreading wind borne poisonous fumes across the neighbourhood, impose sanctions on those countries or other lesser parties that choose to ignore the legislation and define who is responsible for compliance with legislation (including named persons with their precise area of responsibility documented)

The effects of the above legislation on engineering activities have, in general, made them more difficult and more expensive to implement. A few simple examples of this follow:

Chemical factories can no longer discharge their dangerous waste effluent straight into the river or sea without first passing it through some form of purification.

Coal fuelled power stations must ensure that their chimney stacks do not pollute the neighbourhood with smoke containing illegal limits of grit, dust, toxic gases and other pollutants. A system of smoke filtration and purification must be (expensively) incorporated.

IP Rights

Overview

Intellectual property is a form of original creation by an individual or company and that individual or company therefore has the right to sell it, as it becomes, in essence, their property.

It can affect you in many ways because if you come up with an original creation you will want it to be protected so that either only you can benefit from it or you can sell it and make profit. It will also be vital to know if you are using somebody else’s intellectual property, because if you are you can be sued

My engineer’s intellectual property rights are one of his most valuable business assets. If he fails to protect his intellectual property rights, he may be failing to protect his business. A failure to protect his own rights will lead to other taking advantage of his competitive edge.

If others are trying to copy anything that he wants protected or are trying to use these rights without his permissions, it is called infringement. Infringement such as counterfeit goods can ruin a company’s goodwill in the marketplace.

As well as protecting his intellectual property rights, he should ensure that he did not infringe anybody else’s rights. Like any form of property it is possible to buy, sell and licence intellectual property rights.

It is important to my engineer be aware of IP rights because if they are breached, he is likely to be sued for any loss the company or individual that owns the rights has suffered. IP rights are property and should be treated as such.

There are four main types of intellectual property: Patents, trade marks, copyright and design rights

Patents

If AVX develop an inventive product or process that is innovative, their industry it will be possible to apply for a patent. A patent will protect their product or process and forbid anyone, apart from them using or selling it without their permission. A patent will ensure that they will have the exclusive right to sell or use the product or process within the jurisdiction that the patent was invented.

Patents are granted for the territory in which they are applied within; therefore if they apply within the UK you will be granted exclusive use within the UK. It is possible however to apply for protection within the whole of the EU by virtue of the European Patent Convention or the Patent Co-operation Treaty.

Before they apply for their patent it is very important that they don’t publicly reveal their product or process.

There are certain restrictions in place for what cannot be patented, these include method of medical treatment or diagnosis, a way of performing a mental act, playing a game or doing business, a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, a scientific or mathematical discover, theory or method, a presentation of information, or some computer programs and anything immoral or contrary to public policy.

The inventor, the inventor’s employer or anyone else who has bought or licensed the rights to the product or process can own a patent. A patent can last for up to 20 years but it does need to be renewed every year, a renewal fee will be due.

Trade Marks

A trademark is a sign, which separates the goods and services of AVX to its competitors. A trademark can include words, logos, pictures or all three

If they successfully register their trademark they will have the right to use the trademark within the classes that it is registered. They will also be entitled to take legal action against anyone infringing said trademark. For it to be possible for AVX to register a trademark it must be distinctive to AVX specific goods and services and not the same as any earlier trademark they may have registered.

There are restrictions in place as to what can and cannot be used in a trademark for it to be registered. An example of this will be pictures, logos or words that are likely to cause confusion to the public if used as a trademark. Trademarks, which describe the goods in question by the use of a characteristic such as the geographical location of the goods or services, are likely to be rejected. Trademarks to which the overwhelming characteristic is something to which has become standard in your line of work may also be rejected in the process of registering. It goes without saying that trade marks which are against the law or deceptive will not be freely registered. It is possible that the owner will reject an application for a trademark. It is possible for two trademarks, which are identical to be registered if they are within different classes of goods.

To apply for a trademark AVX must have registration needs to be submitted to the Trade Marks Registry. This will register their mark within the UK. To get further trademark protection within the EU, a trademark may be registered with the Office of Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) for a Community Trade Mark.

It is possible to enforce some common law rights over their trademark if they allow it to remain unregistered; however, they are far more protected if the trademark is registered. Once registered they will need to pay a renewal fee every 10 years, however, a trademark can last indefinitely. To register a trade mark within the UK a TM3 form along with a fee will need to be submitted to the Trade Mark Registry.

Copyright