News
Tips for SAFEguarding machinery
When it comes to the powered machinery and equipment at your workplace, effective safeguarding should be a key piece of your safety program. Anyone who owns, works with, or sells powered machinery and equipment has a responsibility to help protect persons in the workplace from harmful contact with the machinery and equipment. Here are some tips to help you build and implement this part of your safety program.
The process of safeguarding machinery and equipment is broken down into four steps:
- Hazard Recognition
- Risk Assessment
- Design and Selection Criteria for Safeguards
- Common Safeguarding Applications
The first step is recognizing hazards. This means identifying where there is potential for an injury to happen. For example, observing how moving parts of a machine operate and could come into harmful contact with a worker’s body is just one way to recognize potential hazards.
Hazard recognition also means spotting where health issues might come up. These include inhaling toxic fumes, or ingesting dangerous substances, to name a few. Being able to identify these potential hazards and health issues is half the battle.
The two most important factors in the second step, Risk Assessment, are identifying how likely it is that an incident will occur, and how serious the injury would be if an incident does happen.
This process of risk assessment requires input from everyone that has some type of involvement with the machine or equipment. From operator, to supervisor, to manufacturer and maintenance people, all individuals play an important role in helping to assess the risks.
Steps three and four involve actually safeguarding machinery and equipment. Certain safeguards work best for certain types of hazards. Safeguards range from making people aware of the risks, to preventing people from physically contacting hazardous areas, and other things in between.
These options can be broken down into a few general safeguarding techniques, including:
Establish Barrier Guards – which shield workers, supervisors, and employers from coming into any contact with hazardous parts at any time.
Use safeguarding devices – which prevent contact with dangerous areas, while a machine or piece of equipment is being operated.
Raise awareness – ensure workers are aware of the hazards associated with the machinery or equipment.
Training, supervision and safe work procedures – make sure workers are appropriately trained to safely operate the machine or equipment. Effective supervision is also important – ensure workers are able to demonstrate their ability to operate the machine or equipment safely being performing work on their own.
Use personal protective equipment – like eye and face protection, hearing protection and hand protection. This is normally the least effective means of protecting the worker, but may have to be used even with other safeguards in place.
This information is taken from the Guideline for Safeguarding Machinery and Equipment, developed by the Workplace Safety and Health Division in partnership with Work Safe BC.
The guideline provides information that can be used to create SAFE Work systems, and procedures, and to help employers and others comply with legal requirements under The Workplace Safety and Health Act and Regulation.