KEEPING A KEEN
EYE ON SAFETY SHAMIR AUSTRALIA’S SAFETY LENS RANGE IS HELPING TO PROTECT THE EYES OF THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY, WHILE ALSO PROVIDING EMPLOYMENT FOR LOCAL WORKFORCE. ROADS & INFRASTRUCTURE REPORTS. Shamir’s safety lenses provide eye protection for different industries.
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n just a five-year period between 2010 and 2015, a total of 51,778 Australians were administered to hospital after suffering eye injuries, as reported by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. A report on work-related eye injuries, published by the Australian Safety and Compensation Council in 2008, found that 1049 cases of work-related eye injury resulted in hospitalisation during the twoyear period covered by the study. With eye injuries still prevalent throughout the construction industry, Shamir Australia is committed to delivering maximum eye
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ROADS FEBRUARY 2022
protection with its safety eyewear. The company, which manufactures hundreds of thousands of lenses each year from its Brisbane laboratory, combines its Australian-made specialty prescription lenses with Eyres’ safety frames to create certified eyewear for industrial use. Shamir Safety Operations Manager Dale Reeves says that Shamir Australia’s manufacturing process is focused on using the best materials and testing each product individually to ensure it can withstand external forces to protect the eyes. “We start by choosing specific materials
which we know will be impact resistant. One such material is TR90, which is a thermal plastic material with great impact resistance values,” Reeves says. Another highly impact resistant materials is Polycarbonate. Originally developed for aerospace applications, Polycarbonate is a light weight and impact-resistant material, which offers 100 per cent UV protection for users. Once designed, Shamir’s safety eyewear endures a thorough testing process. This includes the use of a High Velocity Impact Tester, which propels a 6.35-millimetre steel ball up to speeds of 190m/s (684 kilometres per hour) to analyse the safety properties of the product. “All of our products are medium impact, meaning they can withstand impacts as fast as 45 metres per second, which is the equivalent of 162 kilometres per hour,” Reeves says. TAILORED DESIGNS Shamir Australia’s range can also satisfy both non-prescription and prescription requirements for customers. As Reeves explains, the quality of both non-prescription and prescription products is certified through an external auditor, SIA Global. “All of the frames within our collection satisfy the quality requirements for prescription safety glasses (AS/NZS 1337.6) and for non-prescription safety glasses (AS/NZS 1337.1) and these are verified by SIA Global,” Reeves says. “They have a long list of requirements that we need to meet to achieve certification under the Australian standard.” All designs are reviewed by SIA Global, through frequent quality checks. “Part of that certification includes an on-premise audit by SIA Global every year.
