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

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.”
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