Machines are an integral part of most industrial and manufacturing facilities. These tools are utilized for creating products, transferring materials, and conducting an array of duties that humans find hard or impossible to perform. While machines offer many benefits, they also pose significant safety risks to workers. The risk of injury due to moving machine parts is a significant concern, which is why machine guarding is an essential safety concept.
Excavator, industrial machine – illustrative photo. Image credit: Gerold Hinzen via Unsplash, free license
What is Machine Guarding?
Machine guarding is the practice of placing physical barriers or guards around machines to protect workers from potential hazards caused by moving parts. The protective measure could range from a basic barrier to an intricate safety mechanism, contingent on the machine type and the hazard’s characteristics.
The primary objective of machine guarding is to prevent workers from coming into contact with dangerous machine parts, which can cause severe bodily injuries.
Why is Machine Guarding Important?
Working with machines can be dangerous, as machines often have cutting blades or other devices that, if directly exposed to a worker, may cause serious bodily injury. Accidental industrial exposure to harmful machine parts can result in serious injuries like crushed hands or fingers, burns, amputations, or blindness.
Machine guarding is essential to safeguard employees from the risks posed by machine components, particularly moving parts. The danger does not just come from a machine acting strangely; even one that is operating normally can kill any nearby people.
Component That Needs Machine Guarding
The components that require machine guarding include any pulley, gear, and point of operation (cutting, forming, etc.). Safeguards are essential for protecting workers from preventable injuries.
In cases where a machine or its constituent parts introduce a peril to the handler or surrounding personnel, the risk must be contained or extinguished.
Machine Guarding in the Workplace
In a manufacturing or industrial facility, machine guarding is one of the most important safety concepts. There are particular dangerous machines that could seriously injure, maim, or kill a person. Without machine guarding, serious injuries can and do occur. Machine guarding is a necessary action to take in any workplace where robotics or moving parts are in play.
SABIC’s LEXAN™ Sheet Products for Machine Guarding
SABIC is a leading provider of high-quality, virtually unbreakable LEXAN™ sheet products for the safety and security industry, including polycarbonate machine guards, face shields, helmets, riot shields, laminates, safety glazing, and security and ID cards. Coated MARGARD™ sheet products are specifically designed for machine guards, offering high impact resistance, excellent abrasion and UV resistance, chemical resistance, and crystal-clear transparency.
The sheets also maintain their impact resistance over a wide temperature range and after prolonged outdoor exposure. Additionally, SABIC’s LEXAN™ sheet products are flame-resistant, heat-stable, lightweight, and offer great weather ability and optical clarity.
Final Thoughts
Machine guarding is important because it helps reduce the risk of injury to the machine’s operator or any other worker in the vicinity by placing physical guarding or barrier around the machine’s moving parts.
Accidental contact with dangerous machine parts can cause severe workplace injuries, and safeguarding is essential for protecting workers from preventable injuries. Therefore, SABIC’s LEXAN™ sheet products provide an excellent choice for machine guarding due to their high impact resistance, abrasion and UV resistance, and crystal-clear transparency.
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Published on The Digital Insider at https://bit.ly/3H5rijO.
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