a conveyor guard may have saved his life - Workplace Safety North

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Beyond compliance: safe guarding at Norampac 6 www.healthandsafetyontario.ca BY KELLY ANN SMITH, WORKPLACE SAFETY NORTH. What does it mean to be compliant with guarding legislation? Simon Fridlyand, P. Eng. with S.A.F.E. Engineering in Toronto recommends looking to safety first. Compliance, he says, means the work process is “a safe process, which is compliant to current and applicable standards.” But how does a company make sure a work process complies with those standards? Marshall Greensides, Corporate Health and Safety Coordinator with Norampac, the largest producer of containerboard in Canada, says his company’s approach is to “identify the hazards, perform a risk analysis to prioritize A, B and C risks, define corrective measures and create an action plan, and then measure to make sure you’ve had the appropriate impact.” While legal Norampac employees packing boxes using a tilt table. Photo by Jerry Traer requirements are set out in the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the regulations, companies in Ontario have to determine how to apply those requirements. Greensides states “at Norampac, we believe that a risk assessment process involving workplace parties is critical to ensuring a better level of safety is achieved across the operations.” Norampac uses a seven-step process when dealing with a guarding-related hazard. 1. Identify the hazards using a companywide internal risk analysis. 2. Once hazards have been identified, each Norampac plant must decide on which hazard has the highest potential for a severe consequence (an “A” risk), which is handled first. The safety facilitator or
champion within each facility involves maintenance people, supervisors and operators as well as joint health and safety committee members in finding solutions to the guarding-related hazard. S.A.F.E. Engineer’s Fridlyand agrees that communicating with all the people who interact with the machine is very important. “Some people just put a box (around the hazard) and it’s absolutely safe, meets all the standards, no problem, but you cannot operate this machine or this machine becomes unproductive. And what happens? If this is a production machine, and it hampers production, people remove guards.” 3. At Norampac, the next step is to call in a pre-qualified engineering firm to review the situation based on the internal risk analysis, production process, materials being used, lockout capabilities, equipment limitations, and the current mechanical or electrical guarding systems of the machine. 4. Norampac reviews the initial engineering report with the engineering firm to make sure all of the bases are covered. Out of that review, a final engineering report is created which is also reviewed by plant staff to make sure nothing was missed. Equipment efficiency is also a key component that needs to be addressed. The way in which plant personnel interact with the machine will change, so new safe work procedures must be developed. It is Marshall Greensides, Health and Safety Coordinator for Norampac, Mississauga also important to ensure new hazards have not been created as a result of the changes. 5. The next step is the secondary engineering review, this time involving the company that will be installing the new guarding system. Once the final design is confirmed with plant staff, including maintenance and operations, the new safety system is then installed. 6. After installation, the machine is commissioned and the critical piece in the process happens: validation. Both operators and maintenance personnel are trained during this step. “Then there’s a stage where we go live,” Greensides says. “At that point, typically the engineer is on site, the key person from the integration (installation) point of view is on site, and whoever the key project person is from the plant is on site.” The important question is: does the build match the design? “It’s like a design build check,” says Greensides, “and then they also test the functionality of each of the systems.” And over the next few weeks, the employees are watching the machine and reporting anything that seems off to their supervisor. Any changes or modifications that need to be made are done in consultation with the engineer. 7. The last phase in the process is the final engineering review. This is a report from the engineer, stating that the machine is now compliant with current and applicable standards. A copy of that report is then given to the joint health and safety committee and kept in a file in the plant. Greensides believes this guarding process, among many other initiatives to improve the safety and organization of the work environment, has paid off for Norampac, and has contributed to the decline in injuries. “We’ve seen a consistent reduction in our accident frequency over the last six years.” S.A.F.E. Engineering’s Simon Fridlyand can also attest to the benefits of making the investment in a guarding program over the long term. “What’s absolutely important is to provide safe operation for all people and also to stay competitive and productive. And those two goals are easily achievable if you structure your process in a certain way. So you spend your money upgrading your equipment because you need to be compliant, and transfer liabilities. But if you do this correctly, there is a payback and if there is a payback, it pays for all your efforts and continues paying on and on and on. The most important thing is that nobody gets hurt. But also because it’s a productive production machine, you manage to stay competitive.” Norampac and S.A.F.E. Engineering are not connected, and this article does not indicate either firm’s endorsement of the other. "We’ve seen a consistent reduction in our accident frequency over the last six years.” www.workplacesafetynorth.ca 7
Page 1 and 2: SPRING 2011 EVERY WORKER HEALTH AND
Page 3 and 4: President’s Message Welcome to Ev
Page 5: “You do things a certain way and
Page 9 and 10: HAZARD ALERT! PAPER, PRINTING AND C
Page 11 and 12: HAZARD ALERT! MINING SECTOR Removal
Page 13 and 14: HAZARD ALERT! FORESTRY SECTOR Vehic
Page 15 and 16: YOUR LIFE IS IN YOUR HANDS. GUARD I

a conveyor guard may have saved his life - Workplace Safety North

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