Machine Guarding: A Necessary Safety Procedure

Prevention of employee injuries should be a primary goal of all employers. One fundamental aspect of employee safety is guarding moving parts on machinery. Injuries related to a lack of machine guarding are usually severe and result in amputations or similar serious injuries. The manufacturing, recycling and food industries all share the need to have appropriate machine guards in place to adequately protect workers.

Amputations, lacerations, and crushing incidents are quite widespread in the industrial field. A lot of workers suffer serious permanent injuries in the process in which some are even deemed no longer able to perform work. Though, certain approaches have been made in order to minimize the cases and protect workers who are simply doing their day to day job.

OSHA’s Requirements for Machine Guards

Preventing being victims of the strong mechanical equipment inside the workplace is fairly easy in terms of concept. The presence of machine guards and other necessary shielding is what all it takes. Though, applying the concept is actually really difficult. For the most part, there are a lot of variations of machinery, each of which have a specific and appropriate type of guard and protection. In addition, one type of equipment requires more than one type of guard in most cases.

The purpose of machine guards and other related shielding is to ensure that gears and other moving parts are not exposed to workers. This includes shafts, cranks, and chains among a series of equipment including conveyor belts, grinders, crushers, and many more.

The Importance of Machine Guards

Another purpose is to prevent foreign materials that are a byproduct of the equipment from injuring the worker. An example of this are saws and sanders, without the proper shielding, minute particles in varied sizes are propelled to the worker that could lead to a series of minor injuries from as small as scratches to at most damaged eyes. The protection is much more needed if the materials being process is metal since metal shavings are highly damaging even if propelled at minute forces.

There have been several instances in the past in which the lack of the necessary guards led to the amputation and even death of worker. The most recent involved an employee having his jacket get caught among the moving parts of a conveyor that led to the amputation of his arm. There is no doubt that the lack of machine guards is highly dangerous, it places the lives and well-being of workers at risk.

In order to identify the most appropriate guards and shields for mechanical equipment, it is advised to seek the help of workplace safety assessment. A common mistake employers make is assuming new equipment purchased for their facility will have necessary machine guarding that meets OSHA requirements. Don’t make this mistake! Proactive employers keep machine guarding as a regular safety focus item and as a result have a safer workplace and a stronger safety culture.