Thursday, March 29, 2018
Training Opportunity - CSA Z432-16: Safeguarding of Machinery
A significant percentage of injuries in the workplace can be attributed to machine-related incidents. Any machine that may cause injury must be safeguarded. Join us for this one-day course as we walk you through how to apply this crucial CSA standard at your workplace through clear explanation, real-life examples and practical exercises.
Date - May 31, 2018
For more information visit - goo.gl/Da9owg
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Training Opportunity - Mastering Machine Risk Assessments
Task-based risk assessments are the key to successful machine guarding plans. Join us for this one day class as we teach the CSA Z432-16 risk assessment methodology through classroom learning and shop floor exercises. A proper risk assessment will allow you to design custom guarding solutions, gain support and buy-in from all affected parties, install the right solution the first time and show your due diligence.
Date - April 25, 2018
Click here for more information: goo.gl/phBgkM
Friday, March 23, 2018
Critical Item : Operating Stations
Operating Stations contain controls that make machinery perform the function it was designed for. Here are some areas that need to be considered.
Hazards:
Operator don’t have adequate vision of the process they are controlling: They can’t see problems form and address them before a larger issue occurs.
Controls are not comfortably located: Ergonomic issues are caused by operators reaching or standing at operating stations for long periods of time.
Access to hazardous parts of the mechanism when accessing controls: Larger hazards of the equipment can be accessed when approaching Operating Stations.
Accidental Activation of foot controls: These controls are not shrouded and can be activated inadvertently.
Safeguards:
Adequately Positioned Controls
No access to hazardous parts of transfer mechanisms, conveyors
Shrouded Foot Controls, or otherwise arranged to prevent accidental activation
References:
CSA Z432-16: Safeguarding of Machinery, Section 7.11
Thursday, March 08, 2018
State of Equipment in Manitoba
Are you confident in the state of safeguarding on your equipment? If faced with an inspection from the province or an investigation after an injury, would you stand behind the level of safety controls on each of your machines? We often hear people tell us that their machines are all safe and properly guarded. However, the reality is that the majority of machines that we see are lacking proper guarding and leaving workers at risk for injury.
We can categorize equipment into four states of machine safety compliance. Read below to learn the four states and see if you can identify where your equipment belongs.
- Missing guards – These machines have no guarding or are missing guards around key hazards.
- Guards are inadequate for the risk level – It is important that guarding is selected through the risk assessment process. When this step is missed, it is common to see guards that do not sufficiently protect workers. An example of this is using an awareness chain or guard rail to restrict access to a machine instead of using a perimeter fence.
- Guards are not designed to meet CSA requirements – Sometimes, the appropriate type of guard is chosen, but the design is lacking which leaves the worker exposed to hazards. Therefore, you may have fixed guards that are not properly secured in place or light curtains that are installed too close to the hazard.
- Machines are properly guarded – This state is most likely achieved when a risk assessment has been performed, guarding methods are chosen by starting at the top of the hierarchy of controls and guards are designed using CSA Z432 specifications.
Do you have a good understanding of where your machines fall in this list? WESguard is a web application which makes the process of identifying and categorizing your equipment easy and affordable. With a built-in inventory tracker, simple machine-specific safety audit and an easy-to-use risk assessment tool, ensuring your workers are safe has never been easier.
For more information visit www.wesguard.ca/freetrial and jump start your machine safety program today.
*These are not verified statistics, only a representation of what we generally see on a daily basis
