Friday, April 5, 2019

Factors To Consider When Implementing OSHA Machine Guarding Protocols

By Gregory Thomas


Regardless of your industry and kind of tools used at the workplace, it is important to ensure the health and safety of employees comes first. This is the one common factor in all places of work. When the industry has heavy machinery with manifold movable components, ensuring employees safety involves safeguarding from potentially dangerous tools. This explains why implementing OSHA Machine Guarding principles is important.

Without implementing regulations from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, it would be an infringement on the rights of workers being in a safe environment. The Federal Government Department has in place specific regulations to help protect the safety of employees. If you have heavy machinery, the first thing is making certain it is regularly maintained besides training all employees on the safe use of those machines.

If you do not take the guidelines into consideration, flouting the rules might result in hefty penalties. The fines can sometimes cost your company millions of dollars. This can be a huge drawback, especially when competition from similar businesses is high. You must always be in a position to prove taking the required steps in protecting workers from injuries caused by moving parts of machines.

Consequently, one of the first things to include in the worker's protection strategy is ensuring none of their body parts gets in contact with dangerous moving parts of machines. This is one of the most reported forms of workplace injuries. In addition, your safeguards should ensure those workers do not close in on the hazardous machines unless it is under repair or maintenance.

Safeguards are supposed to be protecting workers from possible dangers of machines at the workplace. However, if the guards are going to get tampered with, it will still not exempt you from being charged. It is not different from one who did not have a guard at the workplace. The best thing to do is making sure the safeguards are made using durable materials and not easily tampered.

Your safeguard should not just be protecting workers from coming into direct contact with moving parts. Equally, they should be protected from any falling objects. When small tools fall into moving parts of machines, it can result in manifold dangers. While you might have done everything to prevent contact, falling objects can easily be turned into dangerous projectiles by the moving parts and cause injuries to the workers.

Make sure that safeguards do not result in new hazards. When the safety mechanism creates another hazard, it defeats its purpose. You may not claim to have had one in the first place. For instance, a jagged edge or unfinished surface can often result in lacerations. For that reason, make sure all edges are bolted or rolled. It goes a long way to ensure sharp edges are completely eliminated.

While protecting the safety of employees is important, it is also wise to ensure guards do not cause interference. For instance, it should not impede workers from quickly performing their jobs. It is very easy for such guards to be overridden. The safeguard should leave enough lubrication room without compelling you to detach from the machine.




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