Optimation Blog

Machine guarding is often thought of as something associated with industry and manufacturing plants. It is true that the potential for hazards from machines is greater in those settings.  But even in our homes we often have machines where safety guards have become common.  Our garage doors have sensors so that if anything cuts the plane of the door the opener will reverse the action and open the door. Riding lawnmowers have seat interlocks to shut down the engine when we get off the mower. Table saws have sensors to shut the blade off quickly if it comes in contact with a finger. And even kitchen appliances like a food processor have interlocks to keep clumsy home operators from cutting their fingers. 

Say you are a manufacturer with an aging production infrastructure, faced with the opportunity to sell more of your goods (if only you could up your output from your existing equipment).  As you begin your investigation into your options to increase your volumes, and consider the possibility of a capital investment, you may then be faced with the need to deal with parts of your existing system which may have to be brought up to current code.  The modifications you may desire for your current machinery, which will enable the integration of new equipment to give you the added production you are seeking, are also now mandating certain regulated updates (this can happen to electrical components and wiring, and can also drive necessary improvements to guarding for operator safety).

A couple of buzz words in today’s industrial vocabulary are Arc Flash and NFPA 70E.

Arc Flash is a type of electrical explosion or discharge that results from a low-impedance connection through air to ground or another voltage phase in an electrical system.  In layman’s terms, it’s an explosion of light and heat that contains electrical energy that can cause substantial damage, harm, fire, injury and financial loss. (It is something that you want to prevent from occurring in your facility!)

Many companies employ systems of interconnected piping, pumps, accumulators, filters, heat exchangers, etc. and associated control systems to produce a specific set of conditions or products in a manufacturing or production process. Optimation specializes in this space, delivering such systems on skids or in pods for food, chemical, industrial coatings, or other products. Often these systems are designed and engineered to yield an environment for controlling processes using gases such as nitrogen or argon, etc. This requires use of specific technologies and materials, combined in such a way that they not only deliver the right pressures and volumes, but also employ the proper materials, fittings, piping, and valves. We also must consider the safety features that accompany such conditions in the presence of electricity which introduces a whole other set of risks.

Last week we made a milestone at Optimation. We reached 400 days and over 500,000 hours without a lost time accident. It was a time to celebrate, a time to look back and be proud of what we have done and a time to look ahead on how we can up our game and work toward the million-hour mark (which we did reach once before in the last decade). Milestones like this are not reached by chance. It takes training, planning, attention to detail, coaching and teamwork. 

As a provider of multiple services to our clients in the manufacturing segment, delivering our product offerings, whether it be labor hours or machinery, necessitates an awareness of the inherent health and safety risks in all that we do. We must be able to assist our customers with support and machine solutions that are properly guarded, and preserve our own and our client personnel’s safety; we must also interact/interface with our client’s systems in a way that does not damage any of their existing machinery. In order to do this with certainty, a high level of rigor and effort must be applied around machine guarding. This can include but not necessarily be limited to construction safety plans, daily tool box talks, design reviews, job hazard analysis, potential problem analysis, and the list can go on.

Machines used in manufacturing and for commercial purposes often present a risk to their users. OSHA takes a dim view of machines with inadequate guarding to protect injury to machine operators. In fact, machine guarding violations are one of the ten highest causes of OSHA citations. In 2015 there were a total of 2,295 violations issued in this category, an increase of a hundred over the year before. Penalties ranged from $7K to $700K, depending on the nature of the violation and the injury to the impacted worker. The basis for these citations is OSHA Standard 1910.212.

A few years ago I made a trip to Houston, Texas.  While I was there I stopped for a meal at a Cantina. I ate at a few other local spots as well.  On the plane ride home it began: nausea, fever, chills, headache, vomiting. To be frank, I wanted to vomit my guts out.  I drove straight from the airport to my doctor’s office, and he sent me straight to the hospital.  And there I stayed for the next ten days.  They fed me by IV since eating wasn’t an option.  There were times when I thought dying might be preferable to continuing on in the agony. At those moments they would add a little Demerol to my IV drip. A green gray cloud would carry me away and for a while it was nothing but bliss. Eventually the death wish would return. Food poisoning can be really rough. 

The United States has one of the highest quality and safest food supplies in the world.  This has been accomplished by a strong set of governmental regulations and enforcement and the ability for the average citizen to pay for this quality and safety.  Our food supply is so safe that whenever this wall of safety is breached it becomes headline news all around the country.  These breaches are addressed and corrected quickly in most cases.  Foodborne illness is rare in the United States. This is not always the case in other parts of the world. But we are not satisfied with our present high level of performance. Continuous improvement in food safety is still the goal of the government, both at federal and state level.  Food safety in the US is controlled by at least fifteen different federal agencies. The primary two are U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  Supporting these is the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC is mainly responsible for investigating and eliminating nationwide outbreaks of foodborne illnesses.

Just this past weekend a worker died in the Alberta oil sands region near Fort McMurray. We can take lessons from this tragedy and remind ourselves to study our practices to ensure that corners are not cut and best practices are employed to assure workplace safety.  This blog post speaks to safety issues in general, as we have no relationship with the project, operators, or individuals in the Fort McMurray accident.