For centuries machines have been operated unsafely in an unregulated market. It was not until that in 1970, just 50 years ago, OSHA was formed as a reaction to the public outcry of industrial accidents. Originally called “the safety bill of rights”, it was a regulation created to improve workplace safety for employees. Unfortunately, companies do not follow these regulations, which result in accidents continuing to happen daily.
These are the same companies that commonly preach Safety 1st. Ignorance of the law and modern technologies play a factor in current workplace injuries. Machines were not specifically built with safety in mind prior to 1970. Employees operated machines either with an overconfidence or fear and eventually many workers became injured. An excuse commonly used is “my machine is too old to add safety and should be grandfathered in prior to the OSHA regulations”.
This is a response of ignorance to the knowledge of OSHA regulations and modern technologies for safety guarding such as VFDs, braking motors, and control reliability package upgrades. The regulations can be found on the internet by employers at www.osha.gov giving them the opportunity to learn the letter of the law.
The specifications of how to guard these older machines is more protected within the ANSI standards to ensure they are properly interpreted. Support for these types of projects would require a technically skilled company that focuses on both turnkey machine safety and automation solutions with the ability to evaluate the machine upgrade requirements before adding and integrating the proper machine guarding. There are cases where machine hazards are still present after adding machine guarding to older machines, but with modern methods and technology, machines can be made safer.
