At Fuyao Glass America, hearing conservation isn’t a once-a-year obligation. It’s an everyday operational reality.
The company operates one of the largest automotive glass manufacturing facilities in the world. With continuous hiring, a diverse workforce, and annual hearing conservation requirements, the volume of testing never really slows down. New hires need baseline screening. Existing employees need annual testing. And all of it must happen without disrupting production.
That responsibility falls to Mark Hutchins.
One role. Thousands of tests.
Mark is Fuyao’s Health Screener. On any given day, he manages hearing tests, vision screenings, and physical capability screenings for employees entering the workforce and those already on the floor. He does so at high volume, often with limited staffing support, while ensuring records are accurate, accessible, and audit-ready.
Before bringing hearing testing in-house, Fuyao relied on a third-party provider. That model used a mobile trailer and tested employees one at a time. Scheduling was rigid, onboarding slowed, and data was returned as static PDFs that were difficult to search or reference during audits.
As hiring accelerated and the hearing conservation program expanded, that approach became a bottleneck.
“We were constantly working around someone else’s schedule,” Mark explains. “Everything slowed the process down.”
Fuyao needed a system that could scale with its workforce, not constrain it.
Bringing hearing testing in-house with WAHTS
WAHTS became the foundation of Fuyao’s in-house hearing testing program. Early implementation included calibration and setup challenges, which the WAHTS team resolved quickly. Once operational, the system fundamentally changed how hearing testing fit into Mark’s day.
Instead of testing one person at a time in a dedicated sound booth, Mark could test multiple employees simultaneously in a standard room. The noise-attenuating headset eliminates the need for permanent sound booths, enabling testing in existing spaces without costly buildouts.
“This is the booth,” Mark says. “The whole room.”
Mark monitors testing from a central admin tablet and can step away as needed without losing visibility. Testing no longer depends on vendor schedules or large-group coordination. Employees can be tested upon arrival, any day of the week. “I can start a hearing test and still see exactly what’s going on, even if I step away.”
As Mark became more familiar with the system, efficiency improved quickly. What once took more than 30 minutes per test was reduced to a faster, more predictable workflow, allowing him to keep pace with daily testing volume and steady weekly demand from new hires.
“When we figured out the setup, the flow just got really fast.”
Scaling data, not just testing
WAHTS allows Mark to load and manage thousands of employees via the master tablet, giving him immediate access to test data during daily operations. As the program grew, however, long-term data organization and audit readiness became as critical as testing speed.
That’s where OccuSound® Nexus came in.
OccuSound® Nexus integrates directly with WAHTS and serves as the data management backbone for Fuyao’s hearing conservation program. Records are organized, searchable, and structured for long-term compliance and reporting, rather than stored in disconnected files.
“If someone asks for a hearing test record, I can pull it up right away,” Mark says.
Clinical oversight without added burden
As testing volume increased, Mark also needed a reliable way to ensure audiogram review without adding manual work or creating disconnected workflows.
OccuSound® Insight provides expert audiogram review and clinical oversight for WAHTS clients. Test results flow directly from WAHTS into OccuSound, enabling audiologists to review them efficiently while keeping Mark focused on operations.
“The WAHTS system and the OccuSound system work really well together,” Mark says.
Together, WAHTS, OccuSound® Nexus, and OccuSound® Insight deliver a streamlined hearing conservation program:
- WAHTS handles high-volume, accurate testing
- Nexus organizes and manages data for audits and compliance
- Insight delivers professional audiology review and oversight
A program that grows with Fuyao
By bringing hearing testing in-house, Fuyao eliminated per-person screening fees paid to third-party providers and regained control over scheduling, workflow, and data. More importantly, the program now scales with workforce demand rather than slowing it down.
For Mark, the difference is day-to-day.
“I don’t have to wait on anyone else’s schedule anymore,” he says. “The system grows with what we need to do.”
As annual testing expands and new hires continue to enter the workforce, Fuyao can add testing stations without having to rethink the entire process. With WAHTS and OccuSound integrated into existing occupational health systems, hearing conservation has become part of a larger, connected workflow rather than a standalone task.
Ready to bring hearing testing in-house without adding complexity? Let’s talk.