Safeguarding Against Machine Hazards

As today's manufacturing industry increasingly relies on efficient yet potentially dangerous equipment, worker safety has become a predominant issue to all those involved with production processes. Employees must be protected against machine-related injuries that could result in disfigurement, amputation or even death.

To protect employees and safeguard against machine hazards, appropriate machine safety devices and safeguards should be used. Safeguarding refers to the requirements, methods and solutions put into place to protect people who operate or come in contact with potentially dangerous machines from mostly preventable occupational injuries.

Safeguarding benefits both workers and manufacturers by reducing lost work days due to injury. In a report on nonfatal injuries and illnesses for 2006, the Department of Labor reported that the manufacturing sector had 200,970 instances that resulted in days away from work. Within that sector, installation, maintenance and repair occupations had 13,620 reported cases, and production occupations had 126,670, in which the average (median) number of absentee days per case was seven to eight days. Of those two occupational groups, nearly 25% of all employees were absent more than 31 days after the injury. In addition to minimizing injury-related expenses, safeguarding can improve overall productivity and worker morale, lower liability for employers and exhibit employers' compliance with safety standards to appropriate regulatory agencies.

Safety Strategy and Design

In developing a strategy to improve machine safety, the entire machine, manufacturing process and even the habits of workers must be taken into account to develop appropriate safety design and solutions. Machine safety can be thought of as an umbrella under which many aspects fall. These aspects of safety can include everything from machine design (eliminating hazards when possible), safeguarding hazards, warning signage and signals, personal protection equipment (PPE), supervision and training and installation and maintenance. A risk assessment is a powerful tool to gather all the items under the umbrella, and when referencing machine safety standards and regulations, can achieve the goal of creating a safe working environment.

One aspect under the safety umbrella is safeguarding. As defined by ANSI B11.19, “Performance Criteria for Safeguarding,” safeguarding is the “protection of personnel from hazards by the use of guards, safeguarding devices, awareness devices, safeguarding methods or safe work procedures.”

The most commonly used of the above solutions are guards. Guards are physical barriers that prevent exposure to an identified hazard and include fixed or hard guards and adjustable and interlocked guards. The next most frequently used solution is safeguarding devices, which detect or prevent inadvertent or intentional access to a hazard. Safeguarding devices vary widely and can be application specific but include moveable barriers, pull-backs or restraints, presence-sensing safeguarding devices (e.g., safety light screens, area scanning systems, optical systems and more), two-hand control devices, safety mats and edges, probe detection and single control.