Machine guarding facility equipment is crucial to protect employees from foreseeable hazards created by moving parts, pinch and shear points, and dangerous outputs. Reducing the risk of serious injury while supporting consistent, uninterrupted production is the goal, as is complying with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) standards on industrial machine guarding.
Conversion Technology, Inc. (CTI) offers on-site machine guarding audits and design to help your facility identify gaps, prioritize risk, and implement practical, production-ready safeguarding solutions.
Why Do Machine Guarding Audits Matter?
Assessing and understanding machine risk helps prevent injuries, reduce downtime, and lower the likelihood of unplanned production disruptions and noncompliance citations. Unlike inspections, which are often quick check-ins to ensure equipment is functioning properly, structured audits look deeper into every aspect of machinery operation.
What a CTI Audit Includes
Our knowledgeable staff of mechanical engineers, machine designers, and industry specialists have expert knowledge of OSHA regulations and machine guarding requirements to ensure compliance, safety and seamless workflow. Our process includes:
- On-site walkthrough to evaluate equipment and process lines at the facility
- Review of machine areas where exposure may occur during setup, normal operation, clearing jams, cleaning, and maintenance
- Risk assessment for each piece of machinery to help prioritize remediation
- Practical recommendations that balance safety, compliance, and production needs
CTI will detail what any safety gaps are, the potential level or risk posed to employees, and remediation techniques that can be installed or easily implemented throughout the facility.
What is a Risk Assessment?
CTI developed a risk assessment methodology that assigns numeric values to different aspects of hazards and risks, allowing for objective appraisal and simplified prioritization process.
Comparing the numeric values allows us to calculate a Risk Level for each observed hazard, then determine a Risk Rating, Action Priority, and recommendation list. This helps us separate easily abated risks and hazards from those that may require equipment shutdown and changing administrative or engineering practices.
Guard Design and Implementation Support
When remediation is needed, CTI’s experienced staff can support machine guard concepting, detailed design, and implementation planning. Starting with severity of harm, our team identifies the hazard, offers a recommendation for abatement, plans a conceptual design, and facilitates fabrication and installation of the safeguard. We collaborate with facility maintenance personnel or third-party machine contractors to develop safe, compliant machine guarding. Our capabilities span the range of our clients’ needs, including the design, fabrication, and installation of fixed guards, safety gates, interlocks, scanners & light curtains, and more based on the compliant and safe operations of the equipment as well as the feasible applications of the guarding to ensure personnel are safe and production is able to continue moving efficiently.
Our solutions are durable, easily maintained, and appropriate for the equipment and operating practices at your facility. From fixed guards to prevent access to pinch points and danger zones, interlocks and light curtains to allow safe access to the machine zones, to E-Stop pull cords that allow personnel to quickly stop machine movement in case of an emergency, CTI’s project experience allows us to ensure your facility remains safe and operational.
Machine Guarding Service Example
What’s Next?
We stand by our machine guarding solutions. CTI has served as an expert witness on machine guarding-related injury cases and subsequent OSHA citations on behalf of our clients and their legal representation.
CTI brings decades of experience helping facilities identify hazards, quantify risk, and implement practical remediation. If you need machine guarding solutions to protect employees and meet regulatory requirements, we can collaborate with your maintenance team and machine contractors to design safeguarding that is safe, compliant, and tailored to your operation. Contact CTI to discuss whether a machine guarding audit is right for your facility.
Click here to read CTI’s published article on Machine Guarding
Click here to view a portion of Adam Haroz’s conference presentation on “Who is Responsible for Machine Guarding”
Click below to explore a number of the safety and health consulting services that CTI can tailor to your personal industry and business dynamic.
Services:
Confined Space Entry Procedures
Industrial Hygiene/Indoor Air Quality
Job Hazard Analysis (JHA)
Lab Safety
Lockout/Tagout and Energy Control Procedures
Machine Guarding Audit & Design
Machine Guarding Risk Assessment and Evaluation
Noise Exposure Monitoring and Hearing Conservation
OSHA Compliance Audits & Mock OSHA Inspections
OSHA Required Safety Training
Robot Safety Consulting and Risk Assessment
Safety Policies, Procedures, and Programs
