Importance of Machine Guarding to Work and Safety


Moving machine parts have the potential to cause severe workplace injuries, such as crushed fingers or hands, amputations, burns, or blindness. Amputations, lacerations, and abrasions are costly and have the potential to increase workers' compensation premiums.  Amputation is one of the most severe and crippling types of injuries in the occupational workplace, often resulting in permanent disability.

Due to this fact, OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) has established a set of standards around machine guards. The purpose of machine guarding is to protect the machine operator and other employees in the work area from hazards created during the machine's normal operation.  This would include hazards of concern such as: ingoing nip points, rotating parts, reciprocating, trans-versing, and/or flying chips & sparks.

Any machine part, function, or process that might cause injury must be safeguarded. When the operation of a machine or accidental contact with it could injure the operator or others in the vicinity, the hazards must be either controlled or eliminated.

Where Mechanical Hazards Occur
Dangerous moving parts require safeguarding because these three areas of the machine are most likely to cause injuries: That point where work is performed on the material, such as cutting, shaping, boring, or forming of stock.

Power transmission apparatus
All components of the mechanical system that transmit energy to the part of the machine performing the work. These components include flywheels, pulleys, belts, connecting rods, couplings, cams, spindles, chains, cranks, and gears. All parts of the machine that move while the machine is working. These may include reciprocating, rotating, and transverse moving parts, as well as feed mechanisms and auxiliary parts of the machine.

Machine guarding is basically guarding or protecting machine parts that are the most dangerous. Any machine part, function, or process which may cause injury must be safeguarded. Machineguarding reduces the likelihood that an accident will occur because of things like mechanical failure, human error, electrical failure, or poor design.

Using a machine safely, to avoid a potential injury, entails many factors. There are many different types of machine safeguards. The type of guard that has to be used depends on the machine and the hazards it can pose. Before using any equipment the operator should be trained in how to use the safeguards, where the safeguards are located, the kind of protection they provide and which hazards they protect against. Operators need to know how and under what circumstances guards can be removed and they should be able to identify when guards are damaged, missing or inadequate. Machine guards help to prevent amputations, lacerations, crushing injuries and abrasions. Without such guarding, the resulting injury can be severe or even fatal. There’s never a good reason to remove a guard on a machine that you’re using, even if you think you can work faster without it. Guards are there to protect you!



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