The Client

Fiberweb are a business in Essex who produce Terram Geosynthetics. they manufacture products for the civil engineering industry. Many of the products have been designed to support sub-structures and support the work that goes under the ground to allow the visible aspect of the project to perform as planned and continue to look great. They are one of the world leaders in geosynthetics and have been for nearly 50 years

They work in every major civil sector covering Highways, Railways, landscaping, Coastal & waterways, Landfill, Pipelines and Utilities, Foundations and Retaining Structures. You will probably never see most of what they have created as it (literally) underpins much of the infrastructure around us in the Uk today.

The Challenge

It’s a working site and this always produces challenges for the on-site team to work and create as little disruption to production as possible. With this project, there was an initial removal and make ready phase, before the installation of the new noise haven.

With any industrial manufacturing plant, the rules for noise abatement are becoming stricter and protecting your staff from noise is a legal requirement. According to the HSE, The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 (Noise Regulations 2005) requires employers to prevent or reduce risks to health and safety from exposure to noise at work. Employees have duties under the Regulations too.

The Solution

The project involves the removal of the old quality lab within the factory and with that completed, create a new combined noise haven/quality lab within the same factory location. It’s around 25 square metres and has been designed with windows on three sides to allow the production facility to still be on view whilst creating a safe, low noise environment for the staff to meet and test sample from the production run.

Terram foundation
The business, that is celebrating its 50th year, started in 1969 and has their manufacturing plant in Maldon, Essex. In 2015 it was acquired by Berry Plastics who have a huge portfolio of products in every sector from food production, packaging to civils.

Noise reduction within the workplace is a growing area of business for the team and one we have created real expertise within. We have covered the guidelines for machine noise reduction here.

Sadly, we won’t be able to show you the finished unit within the manufacturing area as this is strictly a ‘no camera’ zone due to their proprietary manufacturing processes.

If you want to hear the effect of a noise haven within a workplace, this is another project during the construction phase.