Machine
Guarding—Employer or Manufacturer Responsibility?
OSHA was created through the
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.
OSHA’s mission is to ensure worker safety by creating and enforcing
safety and health standards. OSHA does
many good things to help maintain a safe workplace, but manufacturers often try
to hide behind the shield of OSHA, putting blame on an employer for unsafe
machinery or working conditions, when often the machinery was never safe to
begin with. Some standards promote safety
and some standards protect the manufacturer from product liability law
suits. Most industrial standards are
voluntary, unless they are specifically referenced in a Code of Federal
Regulations / OSHA standard. OSHA
standards are Federally mandated and are enforced by the Federal
government. The general machine guarding
standard, 29 CFR 1910.212 states “One or more methods of machine guarding shall
be provided to protect the operator and other employees in the machine area
from hazards such as those created by point of operation, ingoing nip points,
rotating parts, flying chips and sparks.”
This and other OSHA standards apply to any machine that is operated by
an employee. So if a manufacturer fails
to provide adequate safeguards on a machine, and a worker gets injured or
killed, the employer will be subject to penalties, while the manufacturer will
typically not be held accountable, unless a product liability suit is pursued
against the manufacturer.
The first fundamental principle to
remember is that people who buy machines and products may or may not have the
expertise to properly guard the machine or product. OSHA regulates the employer
mainly because of the ease of making someone responsible. This control of the
employer has nothing to do with who is initially responsible for guarding.
Machine and product manufacturers are the primary parties in selling safe
machines and products. It is unrealistic to require employers to design and
install effective safeguarding, particularly smaller operations. Many hazards are not obvious, so employers
may have no idea of a particular hazard.
Safeguarding often requires specific knowledge, and the employer may
have no one with appropriate education, training, or experience to design and
implement effective safeguarding strategies.
Most industry standards are currently
voluntary. Many manufacturers understand
the need for safe products and machinery, and take the necessary steps to
ensure their products are safe. There
are manufacturers however who are producing unsafe products. This is a fact, evidenced by the multitude of
accidents caused by defectively designed machinery and products. This failure to produce safe products is typically
due to ignorance, to save on production costs, engineering design errors, or
simply due to the fact that OSHA will put the responsibility on the
employer. At times custom machinery may
be put into production before all of the safeguarding is installed on the
machine. Ignorance of necessary
safeguarding is not an excuse or a defense for producing unsafe products or
machinery. Many manufacturers start out
as small operations, where a product or machine is designed by someone with
trade knowledge, or knowledge of a specific process. This is one of the factors that makes our
country amazing—the fact that anyone can take an idea, implement that idea, and
make a living off of shear creativity and the willingness to take a risk and
work hard. This process can lead to
unsafe products, though, if competent engineers are not brought into the design
process early so that the product or machine can be made safe. An engineer can perform a hazard analysis to
determine what potential hazards exist.
Once identified these hazards can be dealt with to ensure that product
or machine users are kept safe.
Industry standards can be useful in
that many will specify needed safeguards and machine criteria. The quality of standards varies widely,
though, and simply designing a product or machine to comply with a standard does
not always result in a safe product.
Most standards are developed by committees. These committees often have
many corporate representatives from manufacturers of machines or products that
the standard will cover. This conflict
of interest can lead to standards that do not protect the consumer, but rather
allow the manufacturer to make a cheaper product or machine. This deplorable practice does happen. Some
standards covering highly hazardous types of machinery have inadequate safety
requirements. At times, safety will be
completely ignored in a standard. It can
be difficult for a design engineer to determine if a standard represents safe
practices that are intended to protect consumers, or if a standard is a
“cover-your-ass” type of document. The
end result of this can be a well-intentioned engineer who designs a product or
machine to an inadequate standard, resulting in a hazardous product or machine
that will cause injury.
The modern era has brought about a very
competitive market in many industries, with foreign competitors making things
even more difficult . Third world
manufacturers use their low-cost labor force to make products and machinery at
low prices, that manufacturers in the
accurate implementation of a
design.
What’s the Solution?
Using OSHA or inadequate
biased standards as an excuse for
unsafe products and machines is unacceptable.
Manufacturers have a responsibility to protect the users of their
products or machines, and are in the best position to do so. Applying a thorough hazard analysis and
engineering design principles will ensure a safe end product. If this was always done, employers would
simply have to maintain machinery to ensure that safeguards are kept in proper
working condition.
How We Can Help
At MASE, we can determine the cause of
an accident, whether it is due to a design defect, manufacturing error,
material defect, or human error. If a
standard fails to address relevant safety factors, we apply engineering
calculations, testing and design principles to show the inadequacy of the
standard. Call us at (855) 627-6273 or email us at info@mase.pro
to discuss your accident case.