Machine Guarding

Operating machinery poses many risks for operators arising from hot/fast-moving parts, rotating parts, ingoing nip points, blades, fans, etc. In the absence of proper guards, the workers may get burnt, their clothes may get entangled, or their body parts injured. Machine guarding significantly reduces the risk of such hazards and contributes towards achieving a safer work environment.

To be effective and not turn into a hazard themselves, machine safeguards must meet the following requirements:
- Serve the basic purpose of preventing any part of a worker’s body from contacting dangerous moving parts.
- Made of durable material and secured so that workers cannot tamper with or remove them easily.
- Prevent objects from falling into moving parts.
- Have bolted & other edges smooth to eliminate the risks associated with sharp edges.
- A well-designed safeguard should ideally enhance efficiency by allowing the workers to operate without worrying about their safety.

OSHA provides a nice list, which we’ve included here for you.
· Guards, including fixed, interlocked, adjustable, and self-adjusting
· Devices, including presence-sensing, pullback, restraint, safety controls, and gates
· Location/distance
· Feeding and ejection methods, including automatic feed, semi-automatic feed, automatic ejection, semi-automatic ejection, and the use of robots
· Additional aids, including awareness barriers, miscellaneous protective shields, hand-feeling tools, and holding fixtures.