Risk Management and Machinery Guards


Machinery guards on machinery and equipment can greatly assist in the prevention of injuries and accidents caused by part of a person's body accidentally coming into contact with dangerous parts of the machine. These parts can be dangerous for one or more reasons, including being sharp, being hot, being extremely cold, having a risk of entanglement, trapping or crushing to name just a few.

However, whilst guards can greatly improve the levels of health and safety within a workplace, if they are poorly designed or implemented incorrectly then they can actually contribute and increase the risks to workers, which completely goes against the reasons for having them at all.

As machinery guards will be there to prevent contact between the danger area and part of a person's body, a number of guards will partially block or obstruct the view of the operator which may make them more likely to make a mistake and have an accident. Many guards will only partially prevent the opportunity for incidents, as for example in a disc cutter there needs to be a gap to get the wood or other material to the blade which a person could still put their fingers through.

Guards which are in place on machinery involved in industries such as food preparation or medicine production will require regular cleaning and sterilization, otherwise, they risk introducing harmful bacteria into the products if this was allowed to grow unchecked on the guard. The protective guard must not interfere too much with the cooling of the machinery. Although measures such as meshing will affect the cooling to a small but acceptable degree, too much of affect may cause the machine to overheat with the subsequent risks of fire and explosion that could ensue.

Although not relevant to most types of equipment guards added to portable machinery may significantly add to its weight and/or dimensions. This can increase the potential for manual handling related injuries caused by the lifting, carrying and moving of the equipment. Guards which are loose or are not fitted correctly to machinery which vibrates or has high speed rotating parts my cause excessive noise which could damage the hearing of the operator and those nearby, especially if they are exposed to it over a long period of time.

To prevent this, machinery guards should be fitted where practicable wherever there is a danger, as well as the presence of warning signs and providing workers with health and safety training courses to make them more aware of the dangers that they face from the various pieces of equipment that they work with or around. The features of these guards should prevent injury whilst still allowing the machinery to operate correctly, for example fan casings with holes which allow air to move freely but are not big enough for a person to get their finger through them.


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