Those of you that get my Incident Alerts or participate in the Safety Engineering Network Linked In Forum have seen the recent accident that involved a 61-year-old supervisor with over 40 years of experience at the plant which was killed when he entered a plastic molding press using an “open door” that was “interlocked” and was crushed when the machine cycled. The article stated…
“The unnamed employee told the Times-News that a plastic chair mold operator reported to [his supervisor] that a chair had gotten hung up in the machine. The employee said [his supervisor] crawled under the machine to free the chair, something he did routinely, and the machine engaged while he was there. The employee said a door was open on the machine, which is supposed to prevent it from engaging, but in this case, it apparently malfunctioned. “I have run that chair mold machine before, and these chairs get hung up in the mold, and you have to crawl under the machine and jerk the chair out of the mold to get it unhung,” the employee said. “The operator called for the supervisor to come over there, and the supervisor crawled under there, and somehow the mold shut up on him. That machine was hanging up all day yesterday.”
This is such a critical incident to analyze as it happens each and every day at, what I would say, every business around the globe. OSHA does make an exception to LOTO when the task(s) is “Routine, Repetitive, and Integral”; however, these exceptions ONLY APPLY to “Minor tool changes and adjustments, and other minor servicing activities, which take place during normal production operations.”