Machine Guarding
Mechanical and Safety Engineering has extensive experience with industrial machine guarding accidents with a wide variety of machinery. Guarding accidents can cover a very wide range of products. Guarding accidents occur when a poultry worker bypasses machine safeguards and gets injured, when a saw operator is cut on a spinning blade, when a press operator is crushed by a power press, when a machine operator is caught in an in-running nip point (the place where two opposing rotating mechanisms meet), when a person is cut by a lawnmower blade, when a farmer is injured or killed by agricultural machinery, and a multitude of possible scenarios. .
MASE often handles cases involving machine guarding. Industrial machinery often contain large amounts of mechanical energy. This results in high forces that are applied to the part and anything in its path. Inadequate machine guarding will inevitably result in accidents. Machines must be safeguarded so that it is impossible for a machine operator to be exposed to the point of operation of the machine, the place where the mechanical energy is released. MASE personnel have the experience to determine if an industrial accident is due to inadequate safeguarding, safeguard malfunction, or due to tampering with safety interlock devices.
Extensive standards specify the requisite measures to ensure protection from mechanical hazards. These industry standards can be used to determine if a machine has the necessary safety features, and whether the machine meets safety standards for the time period during which it was produced. Showing either compliance or violation of these industry standards is typically adequate to show a machine is safe or unreasonably dangerous.
MASE has extensive experience developing guarding solutions to industrial machinery. Basic engineering principles can be applied to develop guarding solutions to every type of machine-related hazard. Failure of the manufacturer of a machine to provide adequate safeguarding can cause the manufacturer to be held responsible for injuries and damages by the machine. Employers of machine operators also are required by federal law to provide a safe working environment for their workers - this includes ensuring that machines are adequately guarded. Employers are often blamed and found responsible when the manufacturer of a machine is the party truly responsible for producing a safe product in the first place. Federal law can unfortunately protect manufacturers producing unsafe, faulty machinery. MASE believe that manufacturers are responsible for producing safe products - they have the expertise to fully understand the hazards of the product, and how to eliminate or safeguard those hazards. This said, employers are required by law to ensure that their workers are not exposed to hazards, and should employ safety engineers to ensure that their facilities do not contain unknown hazards that manufacturers have failed to remove or safeguard.
MASE provides engineering expert witness analysis, opinions, and testimony for your machine guarding case. Machine guarding accident cases usually involve machines that were produced without necessary guarding, or machines that have had their safeguards removed and/or bypassed. MASE can quickly and efficiently identify unguarded machine hazards as well as unnecessary machine hazards that could have been eliminated completely at the design stage. If a machine meets industry standards and engineering design protocol, we are happy to defend the safety features of a machine.
MASE works with a variety of machine guarding cases, including power press accidents, food processing equipment accidents, nip point accidents, maintenance related accidents, shear point accidents, lawnmower accidents, conveyors, ATV/UTV overturn accidents, OSHA violation industrial machine guarding cases, table saw injuries, punch press accidents, wood chipper accidents, tractor rollover accidents, and others. Call us today at (855) 627-6273 or email us at info@mase.pro to discuss machine guarding issues.
