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Industrial safety is governed at the provincial level,
with each province enforcing and maintaining their
respective Occupational Health and Safety Act. They set
out the rights and duties of all parties in the
workplace with the main purpose to protect workers
against health and safety hazards. In Ontario,
Industrial Establishments under the Act, s. 24, deals
with moving parts, s. 25 deals with nip points and s. 26
deals with waste product guarding. Remember to review
your respective provincial/federal OHS act/code to
ensure guarding compliance.
Moving parts in machines are hazardous because they
could accidentally come into contact with a worker’s
body. Moving parts could include pneumatic or hydraulic
systems; electrical circuits; hot exhausts and toxic
chemicals, as well as, flying objects such as processing
materials or waste.
Mechanical hazards happen in three areas:
- the point of operation (such as cutting and drilling)
- power transmission parts (such as pulleys and chains)
and
- other moving parts (such as rotating and transversing
moving parts).
The best way to manage machine hazards is using
engineering controls, which occurs during the design
stage, offering the greatest and most dependable means
of safety. If this is not possible, then the machine
must be equipped with a safeguard or a safeguard device
that will protect the user and workers close by. The
safeguard is designed for the machine, offering the best
protection for workers. They are classified into five
groups: guards (usually made from metal); devices
(gates); location/distance; feeding/ejection methods and
miscellaneous aids (awareness barriers).
Machine guards should foil contact, be firmly attached,
create no new hazards, guard against falling objects and
create no interference. The Canadian Standards
Association has developed Standard Z432-04, Safeguarding
of Machinery; it is used widely by industry and various
regulatory bodies. They recognize it as “a reasonable
standard of care”, using it when enforcing the law.
Employers must address any measures needed to bring
their equipment into compliance. Hiring an engineer to
assess your guarding needs for new and older machines
could be a wise investment; they’ll become the
responsible party and will usually reassess
modifications to machines if productivity has been
affected.
Remember working without safeguards could end up being a
dead end job!
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Sources:
http://www.iapa.ca/pdf/machine.pdf
http://www.iapa.ca/main/resources/resources_mte.aspx
http://www.whsc.on.ca/pubs/res_lines2.cfm?resID=17
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