Working with manufacturing equipment
Machine Guarding Improves Safety
Could your last workplace incident have been prevented?
Manufacturing companies rely on industrial equipment for increasing efficiency; however, it’s essential to identify and protect workers from potential hazards such as the following:
- Impact and flying debris – certain processes may eject waste or material that could be dangerous to nearby workers
- Crushing, pinching – heavy machinery components can crush or pinch limbs
- Entanglement – rotating or moving parts such as flywheels, belts, chains and gears can catch worker’s clothing or hair
- Cutting, shearing – sharp blades, tools, and moving parts pose dangers when left exposed
- Burning – parts that heat up can cause burns if contacted by workers
- Electrical shock – live electrical components present a safety risk
Machine guarding protects against many hazards and increases compliance with applicable occupational health and safety regulations.
Lack of compliant guards is a safety issue that should be identified and rectified before official inspections. However, lack of proper guarding continues to be a source of notices of contraventions. Inspections from a recent machine guarding hazards initiative issued 189 orders to comply with legal requirements for employer failure to provide a guard to prevent access to an exposed moving part, and 157 orders for failure to provide a guard to prevent access to a pinch point. Every year in Canada approximately 2,500 people are injured because of machine related incidents. That’s a large number of injuries that are so easily preventable.
Failure to prevent incidents can be costly. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario recorded over $44 million in costs in 2022-2023 for claims related to being caught in or compressed by equipment or objects or collapsing material.
In this article, we’ll look at 3 types of machine guarding:
- Fixed guards
- Interlocking devices
- Automatic shutdown
Fixed guards limit exposure to potentially dangerous machine parts
To enclose sharp, rotating, hot, electrically charged or other potentially dangerous machine parts, fixed guards that can’t be removed are an optimal preventive measure. If a “fixed” guard must be removable, it should require tools to open or remove it. CSA standard Z432 Safeguarding of Machinery requires “protective measures consisting of the use of specific technical means, called safeguards (guards, protective-devices), to protect workers from hazards that cannot be reasonably removed or sufficiently limited by design.”
Interlocking devices require guards to be in place for machine operation
When a safety guard is opened or removed, interlocking devices automatically shut off the machine. To restart the machine, the guard must be in place. These types of guards are often used to protect against flying debris. An example of equipment with an interlocking safety device is a drill press that won’t start if the guard isn’t in position.
Automatic shutdown detects unsafe proximity and other conditions
Another way to protect workers against machine hazards is to employ automatic shutdown when a safety condition isn’t met, such as opening a physical gate, crossing a light curtain or other barrier, or not having both hands on a control bar. Automatic shutdown can also be based on unsafe conditions such as overheating or overloading.
Machine guarding is an excellent way to prevent injury and promote workplace safety. However, machine guarding alone doesn’t eliminate hazards. A safe workplace must provide an environment where worker safety is a priority, with properly implemented and enforced safety protocols and comprehensive safety training for workers.
Additional information about Machinery Safeguarding is available from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
Resources: https://www.ontario.ca/page/compliance-initiative-results-machine-guarding
https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/safeguarding/general.html
https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/safeguarding/machinery.html