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Machine guarding is often viewed as a physical barrier between a worker and a moving part. Fixed metal guards, fencing, or interlocked gates that physically keep employees away from hazardous motion are often the first things that come to mind. These safeguards are essential, but they are not the only options.
Continue reading “Machine Guarding: Protection Beyond Physical Barriers”
In manufacturing, downtime is a direct hit to productivity, profitability, employee safety, and resource efficiency. When machines sit idle because an operator is unavailable, parts are loaded inconsistently, or manual handoffs slow the process, production schedules suffer and waste increases.
Continue reading “Safety & Sustainability: How Automated Machine Tending Reduces Downtime”
Every piece of machinery comes with its own benefits and hazards. Using guards and devices to shield hazardous areas of a machine is essential to protect workers, prevent accidents, and comply with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s (OSHA) regulations, as well as American National Standards Institute (ANSI) consensus standards on industrial machine guarding and overall machine safety.
Continue reading “Industrial Safety: 5 Machine Guarding Solutions to Protect Your Employees”
Machine guarding is one of the most important safeguards in industrial workplaces, yet it remains one of the most frequently cited violations during OSHA inspections. Proper machine guarding is essential for protecting workers from hazards such as rotating components, pinch points, flying debris, and moving mechanical parts. Even when equipment appears to be operating normally, inadequate or poorly designed safeguards can expose employees to serious injury risks.
Many facilities assume that machinery purchased from manufacturers already meets safety requirements. However, OSHA ultimately places the responsibility for machinery guarding on the employer. Equipment may arrive with protective features installed, but the final responsibility for ensuring a machinery guard is appropriate for the equipment’s location, operation, and maintenance procedures rests with the facility operating the equipment. Changes in layout, process flow, or maintenance access can create hazards that were not considered when the equipment was originally designed. Continue reading “Is My Machine Guarding Working Well and Safe?”
Each year, OSHA releases its list of the most frequently cited standards, and consistently near the top are Machine guarding and Lock out/tag out (LOTO) violations. These citations are not minor paperwork errors. They are often tied to serious injuries, amputations, or fatalities resulting from uncontrolled hazardous energy or exposure to moving machine parts.
Understanding why these areas continue to generate citations is critical for employers seeking to reduce risk and maintain compliance. Continue reading “Why Machine Guarding and Lockout/Tagout Are the Most Cited OSHA Violations”
Assessing and understanding machine risks, essential safeguarding techniques, and the safety standards that govern the manufacturing sector are critical to avoiding workplace injury, regulatory penalties and operational disruptions.
In modern manufacturing environments, every machine — old or new — can pose hidden hazards. This article lays out a structured approach to machine risk assessment, compliance with ANSI/OSHA standards, and ongoing audits. By proactively assessing risks, implementing tailored safeguards, and embedding safety into operations, facilities can prevent injuries, avoid regulatory citations, and minimize costly downtime. This is not just compliance — it’s operational excellence with a human focus.
Don’t gamble with machine safety — let your operations run with confidence.
If you’d like help adapting these principles to your facility, drafting a machine risk assessment plan, or selecting appropriate safeguarding technologies, we’d be happy to assist. Please contact CTI at (770) 263-6330 to ask about how we can help with your machine safety.
Join CTI for our upcoming webinar presentations:
Come say hello to Adam Haroz, one of CTI’s Engineering Managers, as he will be speaking at this year’s Region IV VPPPA Conference in Chattanooga, TN on June 19th.
Adam Haroz will be discussing how the regulations governing industrial machinery have shifted the need for conducting risk assessments on robotic systems from a good practice to now a mandatory requirement. The discussion will emphasize the benefits of conducting an on-site risk assessment. It will also highlight the need to identify the hazards and assess the potential risks associated with robot operations when selecting and designing safeguarding measures. He will review the methodology for conducting a risk assessment for different robotic systems, as well as other industrial equipment, how to assess the adequacy of current safeguards, and methods for determining the risk reduction measures required.
The Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) is designed to encourage cooperative efforts between employees, management and OSHA for the purpose of improving workplace safety and health. The VPP concept recognizes that workplace safety and health can be enforced in a compliance atmosphere and can be enhanced in a cooperative atmosphere. OSHA recognizes and partners with worksites that demonstrate excellence in Safety and Health.
Region IV VPPPA is the region that serves the eight Southeast states. (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee)
For more information on the VPPA or to register for the Region IV VPPA Conference click the following link: http://www.regionivvppconference.com/
Assessing risk has always played a vital role in the development and implementation of industrial machinery. Industrial robots, in particular, and other machinery are evolving, and therefore so are the needs and regulatory requirements for the identification and understanding of the risks involved in working with these machines. Thanks to the passage and enforcement of regulations governing the use of industrial machinery by organizations such as the Robotic Industry Association (RIA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and the International Organization for Standards (ISO), conducting risk assessments on robotic systems and other machinery are not just good practices, they are mandatory.
Continue reading “Risk Assessment Methodology for Robots and Other Machines”
Many people feel that if they see an exposed pinch point or a piece of equipment that poses a potential amputation hazard, they say to themselves “Oh I will just put a guard over that piece of machinery.” As many of facilities already know, it is not always as easy as that. It is a common practice for a facility to outsource the manufacturing of machine guards. This is done for multiple reasons, the most prevalent being an incomplete understanding, or lack confidence in one’s understanding, of OSHA guarding requirements, cost of proper guarding, and the time required to ensure proper guarding. Continue reading “Custom Machine Guards VS. Store Bought Guards”
